The Serbian Ministry of Finance is currently drafting a new public-sector procurement law. Colleagues at the Centre for Procurement Management in Belgrade organised a three-day conference workshop, from the 26th to the 28th of March at the mountain resort of Zlatibor in southwest Serbia to present and discuss the latest draft of the new law on public procurement.
The new law is planned to enter into force on January 1, 2019 and has not yet reached the stage of public consultation. This conference was therefore expected to provide valuable feedback to some of the experts drafting the new law. The meeting specifically targeted public educational institutions and their suppliers, and over 180 delegates participated, with several from primary schools, including schools in our target regions.
Some changes proposed for the new law are likely to be welcomed by schools, such as raising the contract value threshold at which schools are subject to regulations and highlighting the importance of food quality as well. However, other aspects are less likely to have an impact on reducing the problems schools currently have with food procurement. For instance, the new law will not apply to procurement whose estimated value is less than 1,000,000 dinars (about €8500). Other blind spots may include a lack of effective competition amongst bidders, uncertainty regarding food quality, and lack of professionalism and reliability from food suppliers. Schools will also be expected to carry out market research to establish realistic prices for foods according to the draft law. Although uncertainties were identified in the current draft law, and several comments, concerns and recommendations for changes to the current draft were made, the organisers were sceptical that any further substantive changes would be made before the law is enacted.
Three workshop sessions were held on the final day, providing participants opportunities to ask questions and comment on the previous days’ presentations. The final workshop, on public procurement in educational institutions ‘Food, groceries and ready-made meals’ was run by Steve Quarrie and Ratko Bojović from EUTA (BSN). Results presented from the Strength2Food project on food procurements in primary schools provided the background to a lively discussion on setting prices for school meals, coping with corruption, how to encourage more suppliers to bid, how to set criteria to improve food quality, how to organize food procurement jointly by several schools and how to feed children in the interim, if a contract is cancelled.
Valuable contacts were made with representatives of both schools and suppliers.
