In executing its budget, a public entity — the State, ministries, local authorities, public establishments and other arms of the State — enters into written contracts for consideration with one or more persons, in order to meet its needs for works, goods or services. Such public contracts are generally called public procurement contracts. Three types are distinguished: works contracts, supply contracts and service contracts.
These contracts follow precise procedures, generally set out in a document commonly known as the public procurement code. Those procedures comprise:
award procedures: the body of rules and operations describing the course of a public contract from its initiation through to the signature and approval of the contract;
performance procedures: the rules and operations governing the actual delivery of the subject of a public contract. They consist principally, for each party, in performing and honouring its undertakings in accordance with the clauses of the contract documents;
settlement procedures: the arrangements by which the parties to a public contract discharge their financial obligations in accordance with the clauses of the contract documents;
control procedures: arrangements put in place by the public authority allowing it to satisfy itself that the contracts concluded have been performed in accordance with the clauses of their respective contract documents;
regulatory procedures: arrangements allowing the public authority to verify the operation and effective management of the public procurement system, through the procedures for awarding, performing, settling and controlling public contracts.
In practice, each State and each donor puts in place its own regulations governing procurement. In public procurement generally, however, it is internationally accepted that the rules of transparency, fairness, equality and competitiveness must be observed if the system is to work harmoniously and resources are to be managed effectively and efficiently.
AUDICO’s experts are at your side to:
assist you in putting in place effective public procurement regulations, or in revising them, so that you can be confident they are consistent with the principles generally accepted in this field;
support you in revising and updating your procurement procedures;
assist you in reviewing the public contracts awarded over a given period, so that you can be confident the rules of transparency, fairness, equality and competitiveness have been observed;
train those involved and build their capacity in the applicable rules, procedures and current documentation of public procurement.
