How have Municipalities done their tenders! Contracts with Direct Negotiations and Investment Tenders

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Open Data Albania has inquired into the number of tender procedures and fund limits for public procurement announced by 61 local government units (municipalities) following the recent administrative-territorial division. The research article is based on the database of the Transparent Procurement portal. The portal contains information about every public procurement procedure for each of the 61 new local government units from July 2015 onwards. 

  • Public Procurement (total number and value). During this period, there has been a total number of 1290 procedures announced for a fund limit of 92 billion (new) lekë. Each of these public procurement procedures is listed on the Transparent Procurement portal, under the Tenders section. The Municipality of Tirana is the municipality with the highest fund limit for procurements in this period. Tirana has announced 129 tenders with a value of 2.28 billion lekë. Tirana is followed by the Municipality of Durrës with 50 procedures and a fund limit of 931.79 million lekë. The Municipality of Fier comes third by its fund limit. This municipality has announced 59 tenders for a fund limit of 899.85 million lekë. The list of the 10 municipalities with the highest fund limit includes also the municipalities of Korça, Saranda, Berat, Divjaka, Gjirokastra, Kavaja, and Librazhd. The list of the 10 municipalities with the lowest fund limit for tenders includes Ura Vajgurore, Mirdita, Përrenjasi, Delvina, Libohova, Fushë – Arrëzi, Pogradeci, Tepelena, Dropulli, Memaliaj, and Pusteci. The article with the Table and Visualizations Public Procurement by Municipalities, announced during July 2015 – April 2016.
  • Direct Negotiations refer to public procurement procedures through which the contracting authority selects the economic operators itself and negotiates the contract terms with one or more of them. The decision to apply such procedure must be grounded and justified by conditions that force the authority to act in this way. Being a type of public procurement without any competition, the Direct Negotiations carry the risk of a high exposure to fund misuse. In total, this period has seen 150 public contracts finalized through direct negotiations. The fund for these public procurement procedures is 83 million lekë. Each of these public procurement procedures is listed in the Transparent Procurement portal, under the Tender with Negotiations section. Municipalities of Tirana, Elbasan, Kamza, Vau i Dejës, Rrogozhina, Korça, and Lezha are the municipalities with the highest number of direct negotiations. In this sense, extension of contracts are also considered direct negotiations the procuring authorities do this (extend contracts) every time they face expiry of timeframes of purchases, or recognizes the need for additional works or services. Only 37 out of 61 municipalities have applied the procedure of direct negotiations. Direct negotiations for more than 5 million lekë were applied by the municipalities of Elbasan, Tirana, Maliq, Konispol, Vau i Dejës, Rrogozhina, and Kamza. You may find the article by reading Contracts with Direct Negotiations by Municipalities, announced from 20 July 2015 until 7 April 2016
  • Public Investments (tenders). This period marked a total of 269 procurements for public works for a value of 07 billion lekë. It results that 68% of the fund limit tendered by the municipalities during this time period was intended for investments, the rest to supplies of goods and services. The figures include only investments tendered by the municipalities themselves, and not public works tendered by the Albanian Development Fund or central government units that correspond with investments in their territories. Each of these public procurement procedures is listed with the Transparent Procurement portal, under the category of public Works, using the search filter ‘type of contract’. The Municipality of Korça and that of Fier have the highest fund limits for public works. They are followed by Tirana, Durrësi, Saranda, Berati, Divjaka, Gjirokastra and Librazhdi. Two municipalities, Fushë Arrëzi and Pogradeci have not yet realized any procurement of public works, depriving their administrative units of the benefits and economic effects of investments. Thus, the four municipalities with the minimum funds used for Public Procurement are Tepelena, Kukësi, Pusteci and Memaliaj. The article can be found on Investments, Procurement for Public Works by Municipalities, announced during July 2015 – April 2016.

The portal intends to make the information about tenders and public procurements of the 61 municipalities in the country transparent and easily traceable. Using search filters, procurements can be categorized by their types of contracts, like Public Procurement (investments), Supply of Goods (purchase), Services, etc. in addition, each tender can be categorized by the number of participants, and an assessment of the difference between the fund limit available and the value of the winning offer. Afterwards, information is updated by the number of participants in the competition, the winner, the status of the project, the contract term, and payments according to the Treasury Transactions. AIS is the organization that implements this project. This organization promotes Open Data for Albania.