The Parliament adopted the Draft Law on State Procurement with 82 votes for the first reading, submitted for expedited consideration, the Parliament reported.

According to Vakhtang Bachiashvili, the Parliamentary Secretary of the Government, the draft law envisions a substantial reform of the public procurement system.

“A new administrative body — the Central Procurement Agency — will be established, which will operate as a legal entity of public law and will be responsible for conducting consolidated tenders”, – he stated.

The draft law defines a number of issues related to the functioning of this agency and stipulates that the detailed rules and conditions for conducting centralized procurement will be determined by a legal act of the Government of Georgia.

The bill also regulates matters related to the head of the Central Procurement Agency, the activities connected with centralized procurement, the tender announcement for conducting consolidated tenders, and the tender documentation for such tenders. It further introduces a temporary rule for the payment of fees related to the publication and/or submission of bids.

According to the draft law, the detailed procedures and conditions for conducting centralized procurement will be determined by a Government decree. The amendment also provides that, by Government decision, the right to carry out activities related to centralized procurement in specific sectors may additionally be granted to other procuring organizations.

The bill introduces a legislative regulation requiring mandatory market research, and provides a legal basis for establishing the detailed normative framework for conducting such research in the future.

Furthermore, the draft law introduces additional exceptions from the scope of the Law on Public Procurement.

It also increases the current fees for publishing tender/competition announcements and tender/competition documentation.

Under the legislative initiative, the approach to selecting timeframes in electronic tenders will change — the duration of tender procedures will primarily depend on the value of the procurement object, rather than on the value of similar types of procurement objects, as is currently the case.

The information was released by the Parliament of Georgia.