You're reading: Defense Ministry saves Hr 1 million on e-procurement of soldiers’ rations

The state saved Hr 1 million during the first reverse auction held using the ProZorro electronic public procurement system to buy rations for soldiers, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry reported on its website on Jan. 20.

The tender
was called by
the Office
of Reforms of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine under its alternative food
supplies program. The batch of food supplies was bought for military base A2238
in Odesa, the Defense Ministry told the Kyiv Post.

The starting
price of the lot was Hr 3.24 million. The winner of the tender,
international company Metro
Cash&Carry Ukraine, offered to provide the rations from the beginning of
February until the end of March, 2015 for a total of Hr 2.15 million, or about
two thirds of the initial price.

The company is to supply food products worth Hr
42.39 per day per serviceman in military land bases, and Hr 44.41 per day per
serviceman serving on board a ship.

The ProZorro e-procurement
system made it possible to choose a company from a wide range of potential
suppliers, Communications Manager of the Defense Ministry Nastya Lukashevych
told the Kyiv Post.

“Before, suppliers
were not willing to show their product calculations,
but now we’ve signed an agreement allowing us to have a list of complete
cost calculations with fixed prices
,”
Lukashevych said. “In addition, there’s an evident difference in nutritional
quality: the number of products in the rations was changed from 32 to 248.”

“We’re now
about to call similar food supply online tenders for 10 another military bases
in different regions of Ukraine”.

The ProZorro
system was launched in February last year. According to government plans, e-procurement
is to be extended to all public sector procurement in the country. The shift to
electronic state purchases will save the state budget Hr 5 billion in 2016, Ukrainian
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on Jan. 17 on the TV program “10 Minutes
With The Prime Minister.”

“The transfer
of all state purchases to an electronic format will boost savings by several
times. Even according to the modest prognoses, this year’s budget savings will
amount to Hr 5 billion, and next year the effect from the full transition to
the electronic system will be much higher,” Yatsenyuk said.

He added that
during 2015 the use of the ProZorro system saved the government Hr 500 million,
even though only 2 percent of all state tenders had gone through the electronic
system.

Ukraine’s
parliament on Dec. 25, 2015 adopted a bill on public procurement obliging
ministers and all large state companies to carry out state procurements via the
ProZorro system. All state costumers were to switch to using the system by Jan.
1 this year.

As the Ministry of Economic
Development and Trade of Ukraine informs, Odesa, Lviv, Zhytomyr, Mykholaiv and
Chernihiv will join the system of online purchases too. Today ProZorro allows
to buy and sell goods up to Hr 200 thousand and services up to Hr 1, 5 million.

Kyiv Post intern Olena Astakhova can be reached at [email protected]