The North -Western Hospital prefers the only supplier, and not honest competition

Almost half of all the public procurement of the Leningrad and Murmansk regions in 2022 passed without competition. In the language of officials, this is called "purchase from a single supplier." Sometimes this way must be used, but in Russia they are abused. The North-Western Federal District (NWFO) is no exception.

The purchase from a single supplier is when a state or municipal contract is concluded without bidding with a legal entity or individual. Russian legislation provides for more than 60 grounds for such purchases : from quite understandable ones as purchases from natural monopolists (for example, water, heat and gas supply), to not quite transparent purchases for mobilization training or to combat emergency situations (emergencies).

The last foundation can often be found in messages about the most “expensive” violations of government procurement rules. The fact is that officials like to hide behind the emergency even with such a simple business as road repair . More often it happens that the purchase documents are written for a particular customer. They can also unreasonably enlarge the lots - when in the same purchase, for example, the supply of both stationery and products - and set special requirements for goods or work, clarifying, for example, the requirements for the size of the product up to millimeters or weight to hundredths of the gram. It is clear that only one who knows about them in advance to fulfill such absurd requirements. As a result, only one desired participant comes to the auction, the auction is recognized as failed, and the contract is concluded with that only supplier. In St. Petersburg alone, according to the local control and accounting chamber, in 2020–2021 they unreasonably concluded such contracts for 1 billion rubles. Purchases based on competition, according to the Unified Information System of Procurement, on average in different years they saved 5–9% of the initial price.

The International Anti -Corruption Organization Transparency International noted that often purchases from a single supplier are not justified. It is clear that this is possible only with the participation of bribes. In 2021, researchers of the Institute of State and Municipal Administration of the Higher School of Economics estimated that if the total volume of public procurement of the Russian Federation in 2020 amounted to more than 29 trillion rubles, then almost 6.6 trillion took the payment of “kickbacks”, which is more than 6% of Russia's GDP and exceeds the size of state -owners for education and healthcare.

Such purchases are a scourge of the Russian contract system. The Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation has repeatedly stated this, noting that the number of purchases from the only suppliers has been growing in recent years, while they mainly take place in those areas where there is a developed competitive market.

“It is impossible to do without purchases from the only suppliers without purchases. But the abuse of this opportunity , especially where there is a developed competitive market, not only does not contribute to the effective spending of budget funds, but also negatively affects the development of competition, limits the possibility of economic growth of business entities , ”the auditor of the account of Maxim Rochmistrov said several years ago.

Since then, the situation has only aggravated. The pandemic of coronavirus influenced this. Contracts with the sole suppliers concluded massively, justifying that people urgently need to be saved. As the counting chamber noted , this scheme became then most popular. As a result, the number of such contracts in 2020, in the first year of the pandemic, increased 15.6 times compared to 2019, and in 2021-7.8 times.

“Chronicles” studied official statistics on contracts with the only supplier in the regions of the North-West Federal District. These data are available in a single procurement information system since 2014 (the current law on the contract system was adopted in 2013). For comparison, we also took the all -Russian indicator and indicators of Moscow.

So, in 2022, in the Leningrad and Murmansk regions, almost half of the total volume of contracts concluded with the only supplier (46.7% and 44.3%, respectively). At the same time, in the Kaliningrad, Novgorod and Vologda regions, the share of such contracts from their total volume did not exceed 10% (6.7%, 8.3% and 8.5%, respectively). For comparison, in Russia in Russia this indicator was 23.9%, and in Moscow - 21.8%.

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In a number of regions for 2022, the highest share of contracts with the only supplier for the entire time of the law on the contract system was noted. These are Karelia (23.2%), Komi (39.1%), Murmansk region (44.3%) and Petersburg (36%).

In many regions in 2022, the share of contracts with the only supplier was even higher than in 2020, when the Covid-19 raged, and the Accounts Chamber noted too high the share of such contracts. In 2022, this figure was about twice as much as during the pandemic in Karelia, Komi and St. Petersburg. And in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug and the Murmansk region, it turned out to be higher, respectively, by four and 11 times.

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In the spring of 2022, the regional and municipal authorities received the right to independently decide before the end of 2022, what goods, work and services they can purchase without a competition if they do this from the reserve fund of the subject or this is allowed by the minutes of meetings and instructions of the Government of the Russian Federation. These amendments were adopted by Federal Law N 46-ФЗ dated March 8, 2022 in order to “protect the national interests of the Russian Federation in connection with the unfriendly actions of foreign states and international organizations”. In the fall, the Government of the Russian Federation adopted the proposal of the Ministry of Finance to extend this right to 2023. This happened despite the protest of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS). “We receive from law enforcement agencies many appeals under contracts with the only suppliers who are concluded without any connection with the urgency of the procurement or sanctions of individual countries,” ー quoted the “ Interfax ” head of the FAS Maxim Shaskolsky.

According to Transparency International, in 2022 the NWFO was in the first place among the federal districts in the number of public procurement from the only supplier - 2,400 contracts worth more than 284 billion rubles.

However, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation believes that "the system has adapted to new conditions and works steadily."

“Therefore, the government decided to extend the norm about the restraint and on the change in the essential terms of the contracts for the next year ... We simply returned to the situation of 2020 - then there was also a 7% jump in the share of procurement from the restaurant. This was explained by obvious factors [a pandemic of a new coronavirus infection]. Obviously, we are now in a similar situation - that is, there is nothing particularly critical now. In the current situation, we do not see the opportunity not to prolong these norms. But some additional measures are not necessary here, ” said the Deputy Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation Alexei Lavrov“ Interfax ”.

Transparency International experts believe that purchases from a single supplier will lead to inefficient expenditure of budget money (since the price will not decrease at bidding) and a fall in competition.