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00:01:21This is Economic Environment. Hello. The field
00:01:25of procurement is billions of turnovers and high
00:01:28corruption risks. At the same time, it is an instrument for developing
00:01:32competition and increasing the efficiency of the national
00:01:35economy. More than 80% of positions in
00:01:38public procurement are of domestic production. How to correctly
00:01:42determine a supplier and get a fair
00:01:44price, due to what digitalization simplifies
00:01:48procedures, why procurement at one's own
00:01:51expense also requires transparency, and who
00:01:54controls this area, we will discuss with experts right
00:01:58now.
00:02:06Today in our studio are experts who are well versed in procurement
00:02:10issues: Maxim Alishkevich,
00:02:13Deputy Chairman of the State Control Committee,
00:02:17Natalya Vasilevskaya, First Deputy Minister of Antimonopoly
00:02:20Regulation and Trade, Natalya Tishkevich -
00:02:24Deputy Director of the National Export Support Center.
00:02:28Dear guests, we are glad to see you in the studio of Economic Environment,
00:02:32today we are discussing procurement, both public
00:02:34procurement and procurement at one's own expense, but first
00:02:38let's figure out what the procurement sector
00:02:42in Belarus is, why it is so important
00:02:45from an economic point of view, and whether
00:02:48this system today meets the interests of the state
00:02:52and business? Well, the sphere of public procurement, the sphere
00:02:55of procurement in general, it is of course a rather
00:02:59important process. Including for the socio-economic development
00:03:02of the country, the procurement process itself is
00:03:05supply and demand, and
00:03:08of course, when there is guaranteed demand, then supply
00:03:11is formed quite actively, in the process
00:03:14of procurement, the customer
00:03:17meets the participant, the seller meets the buyer, mhm,
00:03:21of course, today they work under certain rules,
00:03:24in public procurement it's a bit stricter, in procurement at one's
00:03:28own expense it's a bit.
00:04:30saving state funds, and from the practice of control activities, we see
00:04:34that there are no serious difficulties in complying with the requirements
00:04:37that have been established for enterprises. I will add
00:04:40that if we talk about the State Control Committee, then in
00:04:44recent times we have set the following priority for ourselves: it is not
00:04:48the so-called subsequent control, when we come, look at this procurement, identify
00:04:52violations, punish the guilty, of course it should be there
00:04:55where it is needed, yes, but we have shifted towards
00:04:58preventive control. That is, at the stage of planning
00:05:02procurement, at the stage of announcing this procurement, we look at how justified it is,
00:05:05how correctly the maximum cost of a particular
00:05:09procurement is determined, how generally this procurement is necessary?
00:07:13we overpay two or three
00:07:16times due to intermediaries
00:07:19and other friends of yours, this
00:07:22is a direct increase in costs, the intermediary
00:07:26increases our price, taking
00:07:3025-30% for himself.
00:07:31We need to draw a clear line
00:07:34separating, as you say, justified intermediation
00:07:38from unjustified.
00:07:40between justified
00:08:42and unjustified intermediation and what measures
00:08:46are being taken to systematically eradicate
00:08:49such phenomena? Well, the question of combating
00:08:52unjustified intermediation
00:08:55is a question that has been at the forefront for more than a day, more than a year.
00:08:59This question is very actively dealt with by
00:09:02the Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation, our controlling bodies, and
00:09:05not only. At the government level, a plan
00:09:08of measures has been developed to eliminate unjustified
00:09:12intermediation in procurement, while
00:09:16it is almost impossible to draw such a clear line,
00:09:19sometimes, even reproaching our manufacturers,
00:09:22for why you do not go directly into procurement, we
00:09:26understand that somewhere logistical issues, somewhere
00:09:29issues of product safety sometimes it is more
00:09:32justified, still the participation of some intermediary, and
00:09:36at the same time, what to say, of course, a thousand
00:09:40times the head of state, speaking about the fact that we have not yet eradicated
00:09:43this unjustified intermediation, the action
00:09:47plan, which I am talking about, is approved by the government, it is strictly
00:09:50observed, at the forefront of this plan is still
00:09:54the improvement of legislation, mhm, in this
00:09:56regard we are working, and quite actively working, in my
00:10:00opinion, our transfer
00:10:03of single-source procurement procedures to electronic format, yesterday
00:10:07was exactly one year since the entry into force of our...
00:10:10yes, well, a simple
00:12:25example, one of the industrial enterprises
00:12:28procurement of loaders - when
00:12:30they started to remotely monitor then we saw the requirements
00:12:34for a certain type of engine, which in fact, if this
00:12:37procurement had taken place, it would have essentially been an imported engine and accordingly
00:12:41an imported loader as well. So, accordingly, such a procurement, at our
00:12:44insistent recommendation, was canceled and
00:12:48now it will be carried out again and accordingly will allow
00:12:51domestic producers to participate in this. that is, what difference does it make how they will be arranged,
00:13:10V-shaped, longitudinal, that is, these were the requirements,
00:13:14which again did not even imply the participation of our domestic
00:13:18manufacturer, that is, they discriminated against our manufacturers, and I would like
00:13:22to say that these requirements do not immediately say that someone
00:13:25has some interest, absolutely not,
00:13:28it just happens somewhere out of misunderstanding of the situation, somewhere
00:13:31they spied, took an old procurement as a template and applied it,
00:13:35so, for this particular procurement, it has also been canceled, a new
00:13:39contract has already been concluded with our domestic manufacturer, this contract is already in
00:13:43the process of being concluded, and the cost of procurement turned out to be
00:13:46not much, 6% cheaper than planned, but nevertheless it is a domestic
00:13:50manufacturer and cheaper, that is, this is the requirement for the subject of procurement,
00:13:54so, well... do I understand correctly that, in essence, with such an example, we can
00:13:57affirm that the State Control Committee, within its
00:14:00competence, solves state tasks for
00:14:03import substitution, that is, it suppresses
00:14:05such schemes, when our
00:14:08manufacturers are discriminated against to the extent that we have the strength
00:14:12and capabilities, of course we do this, remote monitoring of procurement is definitely our
00:14:16priority task, all employees are focused on this, that
00:14:20is, there is an area, which we pay special
00:14:22attention to at the present time, I...
00:14:45Well, to put it simply, in a normal, decent condition, a person will gladly drive it if someone even gives them this car.
00:14:48We start delving into it, cancel these procurements, well, given that these are state funds, we
00:14:52act strictly and there must indeed be an objective need for
00:14:56cars. Now, I can also comment on
00:15:00another area, this is construction. Here, what
00:15:03we paid attention to are the services of
00:15:07third-party organizations. Here's one of the latest examples: they are conducting
00:15:11procurement at their own expense, well, we also treat it as essentially public procurement, it is
00:15:15the money of a state enterprise. So, they are conducting
00:15:18procurement, the service costs 450,000 rubles, this is
00:15:21a construction equipment service on the site. We start delving into it.
00:15:25We understand that buying this equipment themselves,
00:15:29incurring costs for wages, for the machine operator and
00:15:32so on, would be less, there was such an example twice as much,
00:15:35of course we would cancel this procurement.
00:18:37normative act, which digitized these procurements, came into force
00:18:41only a month ago,
00:18:43but this, of course, will make
00:18:47procurements more transparent, including procurements
00:18:49by state enterprises, it will allow
00:18:53further collection of analytics,
00:18:55which
00:18:58is necessary for controlling bodies and for the authorized
00:19:01body to further develop this area.
00:19:04The system, of course, develops not
00:19:08only the functions that
00:19:11are provided for in the regulatory legal acts, but also the functionality that
00:19:15allows more automated, so
00:19:18to speak, work of customers,
00:19:22to facilitate the procedure for participation
00:19:25of enterprises, but this is developed
00:19:28by each platform individually, each has its own
00:19:32tricks and developments, but of course we
00:19:35are moving in this direction.
00:21:20Therefore, to say that
00:21:23transparent means long, no, I definitely disagree with
00:21:27that, you disagree, well, okay, let's take a specific case, for example,
00:21:30an economic entity needs to purchase, for example, a product or some
00:21:34service at the expense of, say, the republican
00:21:38budget, budget sources,
00:21:40procedures, a competitive procedure, taking into account the time for appeals,
00:21:44it all takes a month and a half, but what
00:21:47if an economic entity needs...
00:22:50this allows for emergency situations, these cases
00:22:53are provided for. To be honest, I will say
00:22:57that during those control measures, no one said, "You know,
00:23:00it takes too long." Well, if a person says that, it means they are, roughly speaking,
00:23:04saying that something is wrong with them if they find it long, the
00:23:08deadlines that we have in the law. And I would also like to add
00:23:12that I admit that some rough edges may appear
00:23:15during the implementation of legislation, as everywhere,
00:23:18specific cases.
00:23:58exclude unjustified procurements and thus increase
00:24:01the efficiency of using state funds. Please tell
00:24:04me, how many such facts are revealed, can you
00:24:08give figures, and how much budget
00:24:11funds, for example, are saved? Well, I can report on
00:24:15the current year, that is, since the
00:24:18beginning of the year. We analyzed about 4,000 procurements,
00:24:22this was done remotely, using information
00:24:25technologies, so,
00:24:27the amount of procurements that were canceled, specifically canceled, is
00:24:31120 million. That is, I'm not saying that we saved exactly
00:24:34120, but we prevented the use.
00:24:38Some of these procurements did not take place at all later, some
00:24:41took place, but already in accordance with the requirements of the law and turned out to be much
00:24:44cheaper than planned, that is, this figure
00:24:47exists, but here I will continue about
00:24:51procurements in terms of their excess, so to speak, yes, sometimes, unfortunately,
00:24:54this is present. Here
00:24:58is one of the last examples when we canceled such a procurement. So, in one of
00:25:02our institutions, the assembly hall was being renovated,
00:25:05so, a large assembly hall, stage
00:25:08equipment was being purchased for this assembly hall, it seemed
00:25:12that everything was normal, this equipment was needed, it cost
00:25:15several hundred thousand rubles. When they started to delve into what
00:25:19kind of equipment it was, it turned out that
00:25:23concerts to be held, and such a technical level was absolutely
00:25:26not needed for this assembly hall, accordingly, this procurement was canceled
00:25:30and simpler equipment was purchased
00:25:33that fully met the requirements.
00:25:36Another example of how procurements
00:25:39are planned, what my colleague and I were talking about, that a lot depends on planning. So, at one of the
00:25:43industrial enterprises, a steam boiler was purchased, it cost half a million
00:25:47rubles. So, a procurement is a procurement. But
00:25:50we had enough, so to speak, will to see what
00:25:54this boiler was for and where it would be installed. We went
00:25:58to the site, so, the boiler would be here, fueled by gas from the network?
00:26:01No, not from the network, well, we are making a project, then we
00:26:05will install it, but we know what gas networks are, it's a procedure
00:26:09of several years, well, maybe several years, but nevertheless it's difficult.
00:26:12So, if they had bought this boiler, we look at the documents,
00:26:15so, the tender, the warranty is 2 years
00:26:18from the date of delivery, so it would have stood in the warehouse safely while
00:26:22the networks were being designed, and even the gas workers told us that it's not a fact that
00:26:26gas can be brought there, because there's a nuance, this procurement would have been, they would have bought
00:26:29it and wouldn't have been able to put it into operation, and the warranty period.
00:27:05We'll take a short commercial break, after which we'll find out what innovations in
00:27:09the field of procurement at one's own expense should be taken into account, stay tuned.
00:27:26This is the economic environment, we continue to deal with
00:27:30procurement issues. Natalia Valeryanovna, we promised our
00:27:33viewers, we know that in July, amendments to
00:27:37the legislation regarding procurement at one's own expense came into force. Please tell
00:27:41us, what is their essence, what should
00:27:44we pay attention to, and what goals are we pursuing, I mean
00:27:48the state, by adjusting the rules
00:27:50of the game? Yes, exactly a month ago,
00:27:54innovations came into force,
00:27:56and I would say that initially Resolution 168
00:28:00is a single procedure that
00:28:03combined both the former Resolution 229, our decisions of local
00:28:07authorities on procurement for local organizations
00:28:10or institutions, and of course added
00:28:14novelty. We took all the best from previous
00:28:17acts as a basis, made
00:28:20a single procedure for procurement at one's own expense for
00:28:24organizations of republican, local level, extended
00:28:27the effect of this resolution to enterprises... now the composition
00:28:31of holdings with a state share, and for
00:28:34legal entities that carry out procurement at the expense of operators
00:28:37of resources, and it was not without
00:28:41innovations, and one of the innovations, which
00:28:45was very difficult for
00:28:48businesses to accept, organizations,
00:28:50was the reduction of the threshold value
00:28:54of procurement procedures to one thousand
00:28:56basic units, carried out at one's own expense, they went
00:29:00completely out of... within this threshold, that is, the
00:29:32threshold remained, but from under
00:29:35this prism of strict control
00:29:38have gone those goods that
00:29:41the enterprise will purchase for its own
00:29:45production, materials, components, raw materials, now
00:29:48we are receiving many questions about this, we
00:29:52all say that what refers to own production,
00:29:55provided for by the organization's accounting policy, please,
00:29:58record it on the balance sheet.
00:30:32what is this layer of goods that could not be bought today
00:30:36under the resolution, and
00:30:39then, together with the controlling bodies, we will simply
00:30:42look at it ourselves, analyze it, and draw a conclusion as to how correct
00:30:46this decision was. Perhaps, another innovation
00:30:50is similar in
00:30:52its algorithm of actions to the requirements
00:30:56for participants in procedures, they have been somewhat tightened, we also started
00:31:00from public procurement, mhm.
00:31:47provide, purchase services, or purchase equipment
00:31:50rental, then first of all, this equipment
00:31:54must be included in our Resolution No.
00:31:5680, meet the requirements for production localization within
00:32:00the Republic of Belarus, and if there is no such equipment,
00:32:03this equipment is insufficiently localized,
00:32:07then yes, you can safely
00:32:10acquire these services from organizations that have
00:32:13other equipment, but... after coordination with the Industrial Policy
00:32:17Commission, well, in that way we are still moving towards
00:32:20showing that the more enterprises localize
00:32:23production in our country, the more they invest in the development
00:32:27of our national brand, our
00:32:30domestic products, the more
00:32:33preferences they will have not only in procurement at their
00:32:36own expense, but in procurement this is the right
00:32:38approach
00:32:41in general, therefore this innovation is also now
00:32:46perceived ambiguously, but I think that
00:32:50this is definitely a very correct and right step. In
00:32:53the legislation, it is also regulated that procurement
00:32:56at one's own expense includes vehicle
00:33:00rental, including financial leasing. The resolution
00:33:03provides for the transfer of all our competitive
00:33:07procurement procedures to electronic format. This, in my opinion,
00:33:10is the most important step towards transparency and
00:33:13efficiency.
00:33:45that we monitor, that is, it is not massive, I will say right away that it is still individual
00:33:48so-called personalities and figures, well, among the
00:33:51latest is a large industrial enterprise, yes,
00:33:55procurement of a transformer substation,
00:33:581.2 million, naturally, this procurement attracted attention, because
00:34:02transformers are generally made in our country and such
00:34:05products can be manufactured turnkey, so,
00:34:09what did the verification activities show when they delved deeper,
00:34:12that is, the market value of this.
00:36:15at the beginning of 2022, the state information and analytical
00:36:19system of state procurement was supplemented
00:36:21with an electronic analytical module, which allows
00:36:24the controlling body to.
00:37:27often use these tender results, what we see on
00:37:31the platforms and so on, they use it for
00:37:34primitive speculations, this is what concerns the so-called
00:37:37fugitives, and behind them, we understand, there are probably
00:37:41special services with their analytical departments and
00:37:45so on and so forth, what conclusions can be drawn from this, the question
00:37:48is rhetorical, please tell me, has
00:37:51the need not arisen today to, well, restrict
00:37:55access to sensitive information in a dosed manner? So,
00:37:58where is the line between useful public
00:38:01control and the protection of national
00:38:04interests? Well, in my opinion, transparency
00:38:08must be ensured and the publicity of procurements
00:38:12must be a priori, and
00:38:14the legislation provides for the possibility of restricting access, that
00:38:17is, if this information is confidential, then such
00:38:21information will be closed, and this is an algorithm that
00:38:24was used and continues to be used, well... in general,
00:38:28globally closing anything else, well no, I would
00:38:31say that after all, we
00:38:34do this not for, as you said, fugitives, we do this for
00:38:38those who are ready to develop production, ready to understand
00:38:41or would like to understand where to direct their gaze,
00:38:45where to invest money in order to develop business, so no, I am for
00:38:49transparency, Maxim Nikolaevich, what do you think? I think
00:38:52that the transparency that exists today absolutely does not
00:38:55harm our state, and
00:38:59those attacks from these unfriendly countries should not be reacted to at all.
00:39:03And what do you think, Natalya Viktorovna? Well, I agree
00:39:06with my colleagues here, because the effect of closing
00:39:10information about procedures will be much more negative. Dear
00:39:13experts, social networks are full
00:39:17of dubious business advice about how to participate in
00:39:20tenders and organize procurements, we have collected
00:39:23the most persistent of these stereotypes and ask you to evaluate them.
00:39:27In blitz mode, briefly, is it true or a myth? I will ask
00:39:31you questions, and you please answer, true or myth,
00:39:34Maxim Nikolaevich, single-source procurements are in
00:39:38most cases gray schemes, competitive
00:39:41procedures, this is 100% protection against abuses, true
00:39:44or myth? Well, it's a myth, that is, not in most cases, yes
00:39:48it happens, but to say that in most cases these are gray schemes, definitely not.
00:39:52Accepted. Natalya Valeryanovna, the cheapest
00:39:54product is always budget savings. And purchasing an expensive
00:39:58imported analogue is a known waste, true or myth? Well,
00:40:02of course, it's a myth, again, no,
00:40:05certainly, there are quite a lot of Belarusian goods
00:40:09at reasonable prices, at the same time, the purchase of an
00:40:13imported one is justified, myth, Natalya Viktorovna,
00:40:16the procurement system is too complex for beginners, participation in
00:40:19procedures requires a whole staff of specialized specialists, true or myth? Well,
00:40:23of course, it's a myth, this is generally a complex category of quality, here, as
00:40:27we... already said, the level
00:40:29of education of specialists is important, accepted. Maxim Nikolaevich,
00:40:33the more detailed the technical specification, the less chance for
00:40:36abuses and the fairer the procurement, true or
00:40:39myth? Here, it's also impossible to say definitively
00:40:42here, but there are cases when this task needs to be clarified,
00:40:46without this, unfortunately, in complex, especially equipment,
00:40:50goods, it's impossible to do without this, but when we see a complex task for a simple
00:40:53product, questions arise, so here, well, again.
00:42:10Clearly, myth accepted, Maxim Nikolaevich, excuse me, a trick
00:42:13question: procurements at one's own expense are hardly checked,
00:42:16since they are not related to spending budget funds, true or not? Well,
00:42:20I don't think we'll reveal a secret that in fact, procurements at one's own expense
00:42:24are much more closely watched, even more
00:42:27closely than public procurements, because there are certain requirements, somewhere even
00:42:30the treasury will control the transfer of payments, here enterprises are left to
00:42:33their own devices, so let those who
00:42:37think that way not relax, that it is absolutely not so.
00:44:40come to our studio of Bel TeleRadioCompany, we thank
00:44:43our guests and say goodbye to you, we wish you honest deals
00:44:46at fair prices, and may the economic environment be
00:44:50favorable for you, goodbye.
00:46:29I'm Lyudmila Kazak, continuing the information broadcasts.