E-Procurement in Albania

Vienna, December 2015

Republic of Albania

Public Procurement Agency

Electronic procedures

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Currently, the use of e-procurement system for contracting

authorities and economic operators in Albania is not a

challenge anymore. It is rather a normal way of conducting

procurement procedures.

At present, all the procurement procedures in Albania,

including small value purchases (less than 8 million ALL

per year) are conducted electronically.

Likewise, since 2012 the electronic system is used for

conducting the first phase of concessions/ppp procedures

(publication of documents and submission of offers) while

the offer evaluation is still paper based.

Electronic procedures

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Open Local International

Restricted Local International

Negotiated With Notice Local

International

Request for Proposal

Consulting (first phase)

Design Contest (first phase)

Small Value Purchase

Concessions/PPP (first phase)

Electronic procedures-Exceptions

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The following procedures are exempted from the use of electronic means:

Negotiation without prior notice of the contract;

Second phase of the procedures “Consulting Services” and

“Design Contest”;

Procurement procedures with a value under 100 thousand

ALL and those conducted on emergency cases;

Procurement procedures “Purchase of electrical energy”.

Electronic System- Main features

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The e-procurement system is established and can be accessedthrough the website of the Public Procurement Agencywww.app.gov.al

PPA website is the only electronic portal in the country providingthe e-procurement service.

The registration on the system and the access of the relevantinformation regarding procurement procedures as well as theonline submission of offers is free of charge.

The role of the electronic system administrator has beendecentralised designating as such each contracting authority.

The electronic system includes two separate databases; (i) theplatform for conducting e-procurement procedures, and (ii) theelectronic archive for closed/finalised/cancelled/suspendedprocedures for monitoring and auditing purposes.

E-Procurement Platform

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E-Procurement Platform

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E-procurement Platform-Statistics

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Total number of published procedures 5288

Total Limit Fund for published procedures 60,105,670,018

Total number of procedures that have continued 3879

Total Limit Fund for procedures that have continued 50,407,013,534

Total number of unfinished (cancelled etc) procedures 1,409

Total Limit Fund for unfinished (cancelled etc) procedures 9,698,656,484

Total number of awarded procedures 4605

Total limit fund 43,246,800,670

Total procured fund 39,497,667,712

% of Procured fund towards Limit Fund 91.3%

Total savings fund 3,749,132,958

% Saving fund towards limit fund 8.7%

Statistics of awarded e-procurement procedures January-December 2014

E-procurement Platform-Statistics

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Statistics of awarded e-procurement procedures January-October 2015

Total number of published procedures 4,097

Total Limit Fund for published procedures 75,960,496,041

Total number of procedures that have continued 3,506

Total Limit Fund for procedures that have continued 70,965,408,510

Total number of unfinished (cancelled etc) procedures 591

Total Limit Fund for unfinished (cancelled etc) procedures 4,995,087,531

Total number of awarded procedures 3,599

Total limit fund 57,288,328,046

Total procured fund 52,188,834,933

% of Procured fund towards Limit Fund 91.1%

Total savings fund 5,099,493,113

% Saving fund towards limit fund 8.9%

E-procurement Platform-Statistics

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Use of e-procurement system in 2014:

E-procurement Platform-Statistics

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Use of electronic archive in 2014:

Electronic system- Access to Information

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The following type of information is published and publicallyavailable at the procurement portal: Legal and sublegal acts on public procurement, concessions/ppp and

public auctions procedures.

Procurement manuals for Contracting Authorities and Economic Operators.

Standard Tendering Documents.

The Bulletin of Public Notices as well as Contract Notices, Winner Notices, Signed contract notices and Small Value Purchases.

Information on excluded economic operators etc.

Annual Reports prepared by PPA.

On the other hand the information regarding a specificprocurement procedure in process is restricted and can beaccessed by economic operators and relevant ContractingAuthority only.

Likewise, all the information regarding archived procedures isalso restricted and can be accessed by auditors only.

Electronic system-Users

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Contracting Authorities have their own account as

administrator on the system through which they

may create users for: Procurement Unit Officers;

Members of the Evaluation Commission;

Auditing Officers.

Economic Operators wishing to submit offers on a

given procurement procedure may create their own

account online or through a written request to the

PPA.

E-Procurement-Actors/Roles/Steps

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Contracting Authority Admin Officer Procurement Officer Suspension Officer Auditor Administrator

Public Procurement Agency Publishing Officer Suspension Officer Auditor Administrator

Economic Operator Economic Operator

E-procurement -electronic procedure

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Admin Officer: Prepares New Workspace & Contract Notice

Publisher: Publishes Contract Notice & Call Documents

Economic Operators: Submit Tender Proposal

Opening Officers: Open Proposals & Notify Evaluators

Evaluators: Evaluate Proposals & Notify Admin Officer

Admin Officer: Prepares Winner ,Contract Award Notice & Archives Call

Audit Officer: Audit Call in Archive

E-Procurement-electronic opening of

proposals

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The e-opening of proposals is based on the following:

Once submitted/uploaded to the system the offers are

confidential (encrypted) and cannot be accessed/viewed by any

person, even by the economic operator itself. The operator can

remove the encrypted offer and submit a new one during this

period but cannot read and edit it in the system.

The contracting authority sets and publish the exact date and

time for opening the bids.

The bids are opened by at least 3 or more persons (always an

odd number) as established case by case by the responsible

contracting authority.

In order for the offers to be accessible all the designated persons

shall enter the system through their own user/password and

authorise the opening. Only in this moment the offer is decrypted.

E-Procurement-electronic opening of

proposals (cont.)

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From the opening of the offers till the closing of the evaluationprocess all the designated members of the evaluationcommission may access all the documents including the financialoffer.

From the opening of the offers till the closing of the evaluationprocess all the economic operators who have submitted an offeris notified automatically regarding the status of the process suchas: (i) closed for submission, (ii) opening for evaluation, (iii)closed evaluation etc.

Once the evaluation is closed the system notifies automaticallythe final classification and the reasons fordisqualification/rejection of the offer.

No other interested person, except for bidders (for their own offer)and Evaluation Commission, has access on the aboveprocedure.

Electronic Archive

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The electronic archive is one important feature of the electronic system which makes the functioning of the operational system easier because: The archive database has been divided from the

operational database reducing, this way, substantially theamount of data in the working server .

The transfer of data from the operational database to thearchive one is done in real time.

The archive database, as the operational database, is online and easily accessible (by auditors only).

The archive database is a great tool for the auditorswishing to audit procurement procedures conducted earlierwhich can be found and accessed on the archive.

E-procurement-Benefits

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The use of the electronic means on procurement

procedures has the following benefits:

Saves time and facilitates the work of Contracting

Authorities and Economic Operators;

Reduces the costs for both the Contracting Authorities and

the Economic Operators since all the tendering documents

are prepared and submitted online;

Increases transparency regarding the conduction of the

procurement procedures;

Reduces the corruptive practices since the submitted offers

can be accessed by Evaluation Committee members only

and only at the appointed date and time for opening.

E-procurement- Initial Challenges

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The establishment of a totally new platform forconducting public procurement procedures was agreat challenge for Albania due to the lack ofknowledge and previous experience on this regard.

Passing from a paper-based procedure to anelectronic one needed first and foremost to educatepeople (especially public officials) and change theirmentality and behaviour towards this issue.

PPA had to bear the burden of training andproviding continuous technical assistance to all theplatform users in order to overcome all the technicaldifficulties they encountered in the process.

E-procurement-Future objectives

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In order to improve further the performance of theelectronic system and at the same time increase furtherthe system monitoring and security a new perception forthe e-procurement system through the following actions isneeded: Re-engineering of the data structure and improvement of the

existing system framework in the newest versions in order toincrease the performance of the e-procurement system anddecrease as much as possible the occurring incidents.

Adding of the electronic services in the e-Albania portal toincrease transparency and notify the users on all the publishedtenders.

Submitting of offers for small value procedures through mobileand design of relevant applications for iOS and Android platforms.

Adding of missing functionalities which hinders the normal workperformance.

E-procurement-Future objectives

(cont.)

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Designing and establishing a new archive system and

infrastructure for finalised procedures.

Designing Business Intelligence system for reporting and

complex analysis.

Designing of a testing infrastructure for methodical work

during interventions or developments.

Designing a Business Continuity Infrastructure within PPA

premises

Audit Vault System monitoring

Automatisation of forecast and realisation registers.

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Thank you!

Gjergji Moçka

Director of Information Technology and Publication

Public Procurement Agency

Albania

Gjergji.Mocka@app.gov.al