MOSCOW, November 29, 0:19 /ITAR-TASS/. Igor Shuvalov, Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister, deems it necessary to bring into effect the new bill on state procurement as soon as possible and does not agree with the criticism by the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service that the novelties can be a check on competition. He said this on Thursday, addressing the cabinet meeting during the discussion of the new provisions of the state procurement bill.
He believes the plans regarding the principle of the distinction between electron auctions and electron contests should remain in force. “I believe that as of January 1, 2014 it is necessary to adhere to the arrangements on the limit of 150 million roubles [of procurement] for an auction and above this limit for a contest,” the first deputy premier said.
“Let this principle start working, and if we see the opportunity to change the limits, we will make the decision in 2014,” Shuvalov holds.
He believes there is a need to pass the necessary legislative acts as soon as possible, so that contests be held in electronic way, as it is difficult to make such a number of purchases through paperwork.
Referring to the critical remarks Igor Artemyev, the head of the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, made at the meeting, the first deputy premier said: “As to the words that we check competition since we give no support [to the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service stand] for increasing the limit to 3 billion roubles, I must say that our opinion on the matter is quite different.” He said that many leaders of Russian regions are strongly against this: they say they are not ready to control quality and a large number of the agreements concluded, as this leads either to failures to meet the schedule or to inferior quality of finished projects.”
On the whole, the first deputy premier made assurances that Russian regions were ready for the operation of the new bill and asked for the speedier passage of all normative acts. In this connection Shuvalov said the needed normative acts to bring the bill into effect from the new year were ready. Part of them have already been signed [by the prime minister], the others will be referred this Thursday for the signing. “The old bill did not develop relations in procurement. The normative base should be adopted within a brief period of time, and we are ready now for the new bill to go into force as of January 1,” Shuvalov said.