KURGAN REGION AND FAS ARE UPDATING ROAD MAP FOR COMPETITION DEVELOPMENT
Deputy Head of FAS Mikhail Evraev and Kurgan Governor Vadim Shumkov took part in a meting on approving Road Map for competition development in the region
The event is aimed at implementing the National Competition Development Plan approved by the President of Russian at the end of 2017.
Kurgan Governor Vadim Shumkov thanked FAS for its attention to the Kurgan region and organization of training workshops in the region. He pointed out that competitive environment should be advancing.
Deputy Head of FAS reminded that under № 618 Presidential order, by 2020 violations by the authorities should be halved compared to 2017 and share of public procurement from small and medium companies increase by at least 31%.
“We see that Kurgan managed to achieve good indicators in procurement. In 2018 share of small and medium companies and NGO in procurement exceeded 43.6% Deputy Head of FAS.
Violations by Kurgan regional authorities, however, are not decreasing: 35 in 2018 against 23 in 2017. He emphasized that constructive collaboration between the regional authorities and OFAS should create preconditions for competition development and solid forth of the regional economy.
The main objectives of the National Competition Development Plan include decreasing the number of enterprises with state participation in the economy. For example, as of 1 October 2019 the number of unitary enterprises in the region decreased to 81 (there were 111 in 2017). The Kurgan region determined 33 key markets for competition development. Commenting the achievements, Mikhail Evraev stressed that Kurgan should pay attention to the markets of medical services, road construction and sale of agricultural products, where the share of private business is very low.
FAS considered a draft Road Map on developing competition. Kurgan will refine it with assistance from the antimonopoly authority.
Deputy Head of FAS emphasized that FAS is not only the antimonopoly but also the tariff regulator.
Today the Kurgan region is on the 27th place in the ranking for placing information in the State Information System on the Housing-and-Utilities Sector, and this is a good figure. The system should become an applied tool in the work of the regional authorities in the field of the housing-and-utilities sector”, mentioned Mikhail Evraev.
The State Information System on the Housing-and-Utilities Sector let users trace utility payments in the electronic format, pay for the services without a fee, apply to regulators, managing companies, homeowners associations, organize online-meetings of house residents, and much more.
He also described amendments to the law on procurement and FAS proposals on further improvement of public procurement.
The second package of amendments extrapolates “consent”, already implemented in construction, to other areas of procurements; shortening the start of bidding to 2 hours since the bid filing deadline, which will be a good preventative measure to combat bid-rigging cartels, implementing e-stores in the regulatory field, which will allow customers to purchase goods in one day.
FAS suggests also to expand functionalities of the Integrated Information System so that in the future all complaints and pre-action correspondence take place in the integrated information systems.
To counter “professional complainants”, FAS proposes the conditions for complaining companies to meet the documentation requirements.
“If pre-qualification is introduced (bidders must have a 20% executed contract from the contract price) for all procurement, and a rule is set that only those companies can file complaints that meet these requirements, “professional complainants” will quickly become the past”, emphasized the speaker.
To support bona fide bidders, FAS proposes to compile digitalized rating of business reputation.
As Mikhail Evraev explained, the rating will be complied automatically based on the IIS data about the quality, costs and quality of the executed contracts, under a given formula, which excludes subjective estimates.
FAS intends to improve the procedure for unilateral contract termination to achieve the balance of rights and interests of the parties in contract execution.