Earlier this year, Ukraine launched a new procurement system. This pilot project was initiated through a public-private partnership of government, NGOs, civil society and businesses. After a new law is phased in next year, all government procurement will take place in electronic format.
The new ProZorro platform makes publicly available all documents and all information related to public procurement. Plans, tender documents, bids, decisions, contracts and payments are all open and freely accessible online.
The goal of the initiators is:
- to make public spending transparent and effective;
- to prevent corruption through public monitoring;
- to have a wider range of suppliers.
Monitoring
The ProZorro platform comes with a tool that allows monitoring the performance of the system using open data. It provides a dashboard showing information on the tenders that were processed by the system and the cost savings that were made.
According to a spokesperson, the procurement system is currently being used by more than 2,000 government officials and state companies from across Ukraine. During 2015, ProZorro has run over 30,000 tenders worth a total of UAH 6 billion (236 million euro). This resulted in savings ranging from 12 to 18 percent, worth UAH 500 million (20 million euro) in total.
As long as we have not made changes to the existing legislation, this has to remain a pilot project in electronic public procurement. We hope to have a new law ready and phased in next year, after which all government procurement will take place in electronic format.