The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, issued a government diploma in a statement on the Presidency website that simplified public procurement procedures, but did not fail to “underline the risks of this new regime”.
“This amendment to the law raised objections, in particular in the areas of transparency, free competition and possible excessive concentration of works, at the Court of Auditors and the National Association of Municipalities,” he said in the same note.
Still, “while underlining the risks arising from this new arrangement, given the relative delay in implementation and the limited timeframes foreseen, it seems essential to take exceptional measures to try to make up for the elapsed time and allow the use of European aid, not wishing to create difficulties or other justifications, with a view to achieving fundamental objectives for the country, the President of the Republic issued the Diploma amending the Public Procurement Code, Act No. adopts special measures for public procurement” , as well as “Decree-Law No.
Last week, the government approved the final version of a decree that aims to “update” the objectives of “simplification and streamlining” of public procurement procedures, after hearing inter alia the Court of Auditors.
This diploma was presented by the Secretary of State for the Presidency, André Moz Caldas, during a press conference at the end of the Council of Ministers.
André Moz Caldas stressed that the Court of Auditors was one of the entities heard after the approval of the diploma in general, on 21 July, in the Council of Ministers.
“The opinion has been issued, it corresponds to some solutions, although of course it differs from others, but it allowed the government, in the light of this information, also to work out some changes in this final version, giving an approximation of the concerns expressed became possible , either by the Court of Auditors or by other entities who were heard throughout the process”, argues the executive member.
According to the Secretary of State, the 2021 diploma, approved by consensus with the PSD – and “discussed extensively in the Assembly of the Republic – represented the creation of a model of special recruitment measures that differed significantly from the model rule of the Public Procurement Code”, including of “special types of procedures and modification of the thresholds that these procedures allowed at the contract level.
“It represented a fairly relevant change in the tendering model and therefore the cabinet understood at the time that it deserved a room for parliamentary consensus. This revision now does not have that extension,” the cabinet member insisted.
The review, he clarified, “inaugurates measures already known from public debate and in parliament on the Decent Work Agenda in public procurement, to prevent the executive from having to make two consecutive changes to contracts. commit Code Audiences”.
“The series of changes now enacted are fundamental adjustments, either as a result of the 2021 law, with a view to better aligning with the framework of European directives, or to achieve clarifications that could ultimately lead to distortions in the contractual The only transformation of background — and which has been discussed at length in recent months — is the issue of design/construction that previously did not deserve parliamentary consensus,” emphasizes André Moz Caldas.
On this point, he emphasized the introduction of a new special design/build regime, introduced under special public procurement measures, which would make it possible to eliminate unnecessary expenditure of time and resources.
“The proposal that the government has now approved is different in design/construction from the one it raised in July. Within the regime of special measures, it is a regime of a temporary nature until December 2026, a period in which its impact will be assessed,” emphasized the State Secretary for the Presidency.
According to André Moz Caldas, in the version now approved, before the design/construction procedure starts, the public body must acquire a preliminary study, in which the main lines of the architectural and urban solution to be implemented will be determined.
Source: DN
