Dr Mohammed bin Ali Al Kubaisi
We read the newspapers to learn that the Shurah Council has agreed to abolish Law No. (26) of 2005 on arranging tenders and auctions, and approved the bill allowing each ministry, government agency or body, or public organisation to establish its own tenders’ committee that will be subject to control of the Ministry of Finance and the State Audit Bureau in order to protect public funds.
One of the main features of the bill is the Council’s recommendations of giving priority in government procurement to domestic products and then to products of GCC origin.
The Council emphasised that state-owned companies should not compete for tenders with the private sector. The law carries with it some principles that we must pay attention to. Therefore, I have selected the most important ones to elaborate on.
First, the law would run counter to four articles of the national constitution in the exemption of foreign companies from providing guarantees, either interim or final, while imposing complicated conditions on Qatari companies before contracting and stipulations on local contractors in terms of reinstatement, ranking and rating, including the interim and final financial security, in addition to sanctions without trial.
Second, the bill states that the contract with the government ends with the death of the owner of the contracting company, and if the heirs want to complete the project, a new contract must be signed, making sure that the heirs have the required solvency with the availability of the necessary technical safeguards. Hallelujah, wasn’t the contract awarded with the existence of the above mentioned!
Third, the draft law and its regulations allows the government to increase or decrease the value of contracts by no more than 20 per cent of the contract’s original value.
By virtue of my former university career, I used to receive a lot of prepared tenders for review. I used to refuse endorsing some of them by holding the makers accountable because the detailed specifications are tailored for a specific kind of hardware and all what remains is to write the device name.
This is not allowed in bidding because it deprives other companies that operate in the same field from progressing; in addition to narrowing the bid for a specified number of companies and excluding many others.
From the above, it is apparent that there has been a waste of public funds in the past and this will continue even more with the new law. I propose the establishment of neutral and independent Council, or a body affiliated to the Administrative Control and Transparency Authority.
This entity will have surveillance authority, and supervision of all tenders, procurement processes and awards in the government sector, its institutions and bodies, to be implemented in full transparency. I propose that the work of this Council be divided into:
1. Approval of tender before offering to ensure compliance with fair requirements.
2. Receipt of the list of bid prices during open bidding and displaying it directly online on its website or through e-government.
3. Clearly publish on its website the bid evaluation and categorisation (accepted, rejected, on hold)
4. As a neutral party and before the final award, receive bidders’ replies, suggestions, grievances and demands regarding revisions to ensure that the principles of transparency and equal opportunities are observed.
5. After verification of grievances, if any, the tender is awarded to the deserving company.
In conclusion, the principles of transparency and justice are important to make the abuser, who takes advantage of his position for personal gain, rethink thousands of times. In turn, this will lead to the protection of public funds.
However in this entire context, we must not forget that it is important to stop the so-called direct award system to a specific company, which increases the likelihood of other companies that did not get this favour to lose and exit the market.
