NA ŠTAPU EU

POLITICS & CRIME The state agency that distributes European millions is unable to conduct a competition for cleaners. Watch out, they fouled the numbers The job, after two months of deliberation, was awarded to a bidder with a more expensive bid. Now they have to repeat everything KD CHRISTIAN DOSEN 09/12/2020 281 RECOMMENDATIONS 5 COMMENTS LAST CHANGE: SEP 12, 2020 It was supposed to be another in a series of routine public procurements in a corner of the Croatian administrative empire, the Agency for Payments in Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development (APPRRR). In it, nomen est omen, a battalion of officials "operationally implements direct aid measures" in the agricultural sector and keeps the corresponding registers and registers. In other words, their main job is to control the applications for support and pay the hundreds of European millions that flow to our farmers, family farms and companies. At the same time, 762 employees in the central Zagreb office (14 sectors with their services), twenty-one regional branches and four other branches across the country cannot do this responsible job, while vacuuming around their desks or scrubbing radiators during breaks. AN AMAZING GAFFE BY THREE EMPLOYEES Therefore, in April this year, they announced a public procurement for a one-year service of regular daily and periodic cleaning of business premises, but also increased disinfection due to already known pandemic reasons, estimated value of slightly more than half a million kuna without VAT. But one of the groups into which the procurement was divided ended in an awkward annulment and payment of compensation to the appellant in the tender. Reason? Three employees in charge of this procurement, in the institution through which billions of kunas pass, after a two-month examination of bids, officially concluded, signature and stamp, that the amount of 54,855.75 kunas is actually less than 49,440.00 kunas. Everything was neatly initialed by the director of the Agency, Matilda Copić . CLEANING IN CLOTHS OF DIFFERENT COLORS Procurement was approached seriously. Nothing was left to chance. On forty pages of documentation, the daily, weekly and monthly duties of the cleaners are prescribed in detail. For example, every day, in addition to a number of common tasks such as vacuuming and emptying trash cans, it is necessary to remove stains and fingerprints from furniture, doors and handles - both in offices and in bathrooms, where it is necessary to "adjust toiletries". The instructions that cleaning should, for hygienic reasons, be "done with cloths in different colors" are especially bold and underlined: one color for toilet bowls and urinals, another for other sanitary surfaces and a third for office work surfaces. Quality control, and thus obviously monitoring the use of the appropriate color of the cloths, is "performed by the competent service of the Client" which supervises the cleaning service "in a randomly selected part of any surface to be cleaned". If deficiencies are noticed, the competent service of the PAAFRD will compile a written report, and the service provider must eliminate the deficiencies within two days, otherwise a penalty will follow. Not to lengthen, the matter is serious. TWO MONTHS OF STUDYING OFFERS At the end of May, bids arrived in five public procurement groups for different cleaning locations, so work began. For a full two months, until the end of July, the computer of which of the bidders was the most favorable was also studied. In that calculation, 90% of the points were carried by the price, and 10% by the ability to quickly replace employees in case of sick leave, vacation and similar circumstances. Three members of the Expert Committee for Public Procurement, ie three pairs of eyes, printed almost 60 pages of the Minutes on Review and Evaluation of Bids and finally made a proposal of the best bidder for each of the locations, with comparative tables of prices and points awarded. Everything went to the table with the fourth pair of eyes, those of the director of the Agency, who for Group 2 - Daily cleaning services branch in Osijek-Baranja County, named the most economically advantageous choice of Samsic doo whose offer was 54,855.75 kuna with VAT. The tragicomedy of the whole story is three lines below in the same signed Decision, where the cheaper offer of the company Adria Mons Services doo with the amount of HRK 49,440.00 including VAT is neatly stated. PROCUREMENT CANCELED, THE AGENCY ACKNOWLEDGED THE ERROR The epilogue of the story is, of course, expected. Adria Mons Services appealed to the State Commission for the Control of Public Procurement Procedures, which did not have a difficult job and annulled the Decision relatively quickly. They did not try to get out of the Agency in the procedure, but admitted that they wrongly awarded the maximum number of points, and thus ultimately wrongly ranked the bidders. The appellant was also ordered to reimburse the costs of the appeal procedure, so the Agency paid him a thousand kunas of taxpayers on account of that, in addition to the cleaning job that he should receive after the bid re-evaluation procedure. Interestingly, in the regular annual report, PAAFRD praised investing in human resources and organizing various trainings for its employees. Thus, in the report for last year, they point out that 477 employees have acquired new knowledge and skills, of which as many as 21 employees who have obtained a certificate in the field of public procurement. We know of at least three who would benefit from repeating the material.