APP-institutions: What you should consider from the new legal changes

2024-03-07 13:55:00, Aktualitet CNA

The last legal changes that were published in the Official Gazette for the public procurement law have also been brought to the attention of the Public Procurement Agency, which has reminded the institutions about what they should keep in mind. These changes that take effect from March 20 must be respected for any procedure that will be opened from this date.

"The law enters into force on March 20, 2024, with the exception of the articles defined in point 2 of article 54 of this law. The purpose of this law is to improve the regulatory framework of public procurement in Albania, aiming at the further alignment of Law No. 162/2020 with the EU Directives, as well as addressing some of the problems arising during the implementation of this law in practice by contracting authorities and economic operators, in order to facilitate the procurement process for all parties involved in it.

We inform you that the procurement procedures started before March 20, 2024 will continue to be carried out according to the provisions of the law in force at the time of their initiation. Meanwhile, the procurement procedures, which will start (with the issuance of the procurement order) on March 20 and following, will be subject to the new legal provisions", the APP announcement states.

The same underlines that the by-laws issued until the entry into force of Law No. 16/2024, which do not conflict with the latter, will be applied until the issuance of by-laws in its implementation.

The main changes brought by Law No. 16/2024, and which come into force from March 20, are as follows:

-Prevision for the first time of the concept of auxiliary activities and procurement service providers;

-Repeal of the type of procurement procedure "Consultancy Service", as a procedure, which is not defined by the EU Directives;

-Defining the concept of the Procurement Order in the definitions of the law, as a procedural moment for starting a procurement procedure;

- Revision of the Conflict of Interest article, also providing for the case of taking measures in case it is identified during the implementation of the contract;

-Reviewing the powers of the Public Procurement Agency provided for in Article 23 of the law, related to the monitoring of contracts, the administration of the database, as well as cases of exclusion of economic operators from the right to win public contracts;

- Reformulation of the provision related to the concentrated purchase;

- Revision of the article of the Summary Self-Declaration Form;

-Determining the cases when an authority or contracting entity reports to the PPA regarding the withdrawal of economic operators;

- The provision as a mandatory criterion for disqualification of the case when the economic operators do not have registered beneficial owners in the register of beneficial owners, according to the provisions of the legislation in force; when the economic operator does not fulfill the obligations arising from the legislation on salaries; the obligation to disqualify an economic operator even when the person convicted by a final court decision for a serious professional offense is a member of an administrative body, manager or supervisor of that, shareholder or partner, of the economic operator, or has representative powers , decision-making or controlling within it;

- In procurement procedures with a value below the high monetary limits, the authorities or contracting entities reject, without asking for explanations, an offer, which was found to be anomalously low;

- Submission of complaints and arguments by economic operators is done in the Electronic Complaints System;

- The obligation to draw up the contract implementation plan is foreseen, within 10 days from the conclusion of the contract, only for contracts, which are concluded at the end of procedures with a value above the monetary limit of small value procurements, which have a duration of no less than 6 months.

-Review of the obligations of contracting authorities or entities towards PPA, for reporting on the implementation of contracts, removing the obligation to report on the drafting of the contract implementation plan, as well as interim reports on the progress of the implementation of the contract.

The legal changes foresee a single report at the end of the contract, in which the contracting authorities will reflect all the data on the progress of the implementation of the contract, the modification/s carried out, the problems encountered during the implementation of the contract and the measures taken for their solution (that is, also the data that was sent from the intermediate reporting)./Monitor