The Department of Contracts -
Winner of the National Enterprise Support Award 2017
The
Department for Contracts, for the second consecutive year has participated in
the National Enterprise Support Awards (NESA) organized by the Commerce
Department within the Ministry for the Economy, Investment and Small Business. The
Department competed with other Ministries, Departments, Public Authorities and
Entities by participating and winning the category ‘Improving the Business
Environment’. This category focuses mainly on innovative policies at national
or local level which promote enterprise start-ups and growth,
simplify legislative and administrative procedures for businesses and implement
the “Think Small First” principle in favour of small and medium-sized
enterprises.
This year the Department
of Contracts focused on its central objective that is to facilitate SMEs
participation in Public Procurement through innovative policies and simplifying
legislative and administrative procedures. In this regard, numerous initiatives
and measures have been taken and implemented so as to ensure that potential
public procurement participants are provided with an equitable chance to take
part in public works, services or supplies contracts. Hence, the initiatives
taken vis-a-vis these criteria include the removal of tender participation
fees; elimination or drastic reduction in the need to submit financial
guarantees for Call for Tenders (CfTs) below the €500,000 threshold; complete
removal of the three-package procedure; implementation of the European Single
Procurement Document (ESPD) and the re-engineering of the tender submission
process so as to simplify the same process and eliminate cumbersome and highly
demanding offers.
The Department of
Contracts fulfils the above responsibilities by issuing Public Procurement
Circulars, Policy and Guidance Notes and this year has also published a Manual
of Procedures to address unclear areas, whilst simultaneously introducing new
measures for procedural simplification and reducing excessive bureaucracy. The
publication of documentation provides the Contracting Authorities with the
appropriate tools to prepare their procurement, thus indirectly shortening and
harmonising the tendering process also for Economic Operators.
All the measures
and public procurement documentation issued by the Department of Contracts indicated
that the measures taken by this department served as an appropriate tool that
aided Contracting Authorities adequately since the number of Call for Tenders
issued during last year was approximately 7500, around 700 more tenders issued
from the previous year.
The NESA prize that
the Department of Contracts received amounts to €10,000, which will once again
be donated to the Puttinu Cares Foundation.
