eProcurement

1

• eProcurement
• Ferenc Suba M.A., J.D.
  Vice-Chair of ENISA MB
• Chair of CERT-Hungary

2
Electronic procurement (eProcurement)
definitions Use of electronic means in conducting
a public procurement procedure for the purchase
of goods, works or services. Advantages -
Transparency - Simplification - Better
allocation of public resources - Techological
development of the private sector - Alignment
with other EU members - Better control on public
spending - Competition and efficiency in the
private sector - Modernization of the public
sector - Financial savings for the public sector
3
eProcurement sub-phases eSourcing preparatory
activities conducted by the contracting
authority/entity to collect information for the
preparation of a call potential bidders are
contacted by electronic means to provide
quotations or manifest interest. eNoticing
advertisement of calls for tenders through the
publication of appropriate contract notices in
electronic format in the relevant Official
Journal (national/EU). eAccess electronic access
to tender documents and specifications as well
support to economic operators for the
preparation of an offer, e.g. clarifications,
questions and answers. eSubmission submission
of offers in electronic format to the contracting
authority/entity, which is able to receive,
accept and process it in compiance with the
legal requirements. eTendering is the union of
the eAccess and eSubmission phases. eAwarding
opening and evaluation of the electronic tenders
received, and award of the contract to the best
offer in terms of the lowest price or
economically most advantageous bid. eContract
conclusion, enactment and monitoring of a
contract / agreement through electronic means
between the contracting authority/entity and the
winning tenderer. eOrders preparation and
issuing of an electronic order by the contracting
authority/entity and its acceptance by the
contractor. eInvoicing preparation and delivery
of an invoice in electronic format. ePayment
electronic payment of the ordered goods, services
or works.
4

• Key-enablers
• eSignature data in electronic form which are
  attached to or logically associated with other
  electronic data and which serve as a method of
  authentication with regard to this data.
• eIdentity dynamic collection of all attributes,
  in electronic format, related to a specific
  entity (citizen, enterprise, or object) which
  serve to ascertain a specific identity.
• eAttestations (Virtual Company Dossier) set of
  certificates and attestations, in electronic
  format, to be provided by a supplier to prove
  compliance with the selection and exclusion
  criteria of a procurement procedure.
• eCatalogues electronic supplier catalogue
  prospectuses used to prepare and submit offers or
  parts of them.
• eArchiving use of electronic means for long-term
  preservations of documents in digitalised format,
  ensuring that they can be easily retrieved
  without conversions.

5

• The source of public procurement
• Public spending from public resources and founds
  (budget)
• The aim of public procurement
• - To ensure the provision of public services
  provided by public organizations by the
  development and operation of front end and back
  end operation of services and infrastructure.
• The core process of public procurement
• - Contracting technique defined and regulated by
  the act on public procurement under the framework
  of civil law
• The subject of public procurement
• - Public entity (contracting agency) being
  enabled to make decision on awarding contract on
  specified budget being advertised and processed
  inline with corresponding regulations.
• The object of public procurement
• - The goods, products and services to be
  provided, delivered as defined in governing
  contract.

6
Regulations in the Countries of the European
Union

• Should be harmonized with the directives on
  public procurement
• The hierarchy of legislations
• -Directives of the European Union
• - Contracts in force between the European Union
  countries and organizations
• out of the region of the EU
• - Standards of the EU
• National acts on public procurement
• National acts on other field
• Secondary legislations under national acts
• Other regulations (Ministerial Guidelines, etc.)

7
Reason for legislation

• The acts on public procurement are defining the
  business processes from publicly advertising the
  intention of appointed contracting agency
  posessing the financial resources allocated in
  referred public founds to contract with the
  economic operator(s) turning out the most
  suitable and providing the best evaluated offer
  in matching the criterias stipulated in
  advertised call and referred documentation
  including the clear evaluation criterias
  providing equal chance for business operators to
  know the aims and details of the future contract
  in fully neutral and transparent way.

8
EU LEGAL FRAMEWORK

• Procurement Directives
• The Public Procurement Directive 2004/18/EC
  (works, supplies, services)
• The Utilities Directive 2004/17/EC (water,
  energy, transports, postal services)
• Both entered into force in April 2004, final date
  for transposition was 31 January 2006
• Other relevant legislation
• Regulation 1564/2005/EC on standard forms
• New Regulation on CPV in March 2008 (categories
  for goods and services)
• Directive 2006/112/EC on VAT
• Directive 2000/31/EC on electronic commerce
• Directive 1999/93/EC on a Community framework for
  electronic signatures

9
Requisites for electronic means of communication
in PUP

• General availability
• Interoperability with tools of general use
• Data integrity and confidentiality
• Availability of specifications for electronic
  tendering
• Security measures for data access

10

• Good practice
• a total solution for conducting public
  procurement competitions in Cyprus using
  electronic means. The project is carried out
  under the responsibility of the Public
  Procurement Directorate (PPD) of the Treasury of
  the Republic of Cyprus which is the Competent
  Authority for Public Procurement. The PPD, headed
  by the Deputy Accountant General, comprises
  professional accountants, accounting officers,
  engineers and clerical staff. The Beneficiary of
  the contract is the Republic of Cyprus. Cyprus,
  as an EU Member State, is deploying a system in
  order to support the electronic preparation and
  execution of public procurement competitions. The
  system will be in a position to be accredited by
  a competent organisation as being transparent,
  non-discriminatory, reliable, interoperable,
  unhindered, secure, easily accessible, supportive
  of fair competition and facilitative for equal
  market access. The system will cover the full
  range of Public Procurement in Cyprus, while it
  will also support the electronic submission of
  notices to the EU Publications Office as an
  e-Sender.

11

• Technology solution
• The standards/technologies used in the project
  comprise amongst others, UML language, J2EE, XML.
  HTML, LDAP, JDBC, timestamping, data encryption
  (symmetric asymmetric) and JAVA script. To
  ensure non-discrimination, all tenders received
  electronically are time-stamped by an external
  Time-Stamping Authority. All notices created
  through the system abide to the DTD 2.0.6
  specifications of the EU Publications Office and
  are submitted through an e-Sender implementation,
  in line with the communication standards set by
  the Office. The system is accessible by end-users
  through Internet-enabled workstations, by the use
  of a standard web-browser application, ensuring
  that all users require minimum system
  configuration for using the e-Procurement system.
  In addition, the e-Procurement system provides a
  desktop, offline application, implemented in the
  Java language, guaranteeing that its users can
  use the offline application in any operating
  system, further promoting the equality of
  treatment of users. The architecture of the
  system is intended to provide security/confidentia
  lity of data and no single-points-of-failure.

12
Problems with the implementation of e-Procurement
- I

• Human resources
• Competences in the public administration
• Human resources in the private sector,
  especially SMEs
• Lessons learned
• Need for adequate promotion efforts
• Give time to adjust technological
  infrastructure and staff

13
Problems with the implementation of
e-Procurement - II

• Administrative decentralisation, centralisation
  of purchases
• Local authorities may be unwilling to give up
  control
• of the procurement procedures
• Lessons learned
• Differentiate between the responsibilities and
  the
• execution of public tenders processes

14

• Five Major Factors for Implementing E-PUP
• - Strong leadership
• - Sustainability of e-PUP as part of Nation-wide
• e-Government reforms
• - Pre-requisite of a minimum level of ICT
  infrastructure
• - Comprehensive process reengineering before
  computerization
• - Transformation of rigid and inefficient
  bureaucracies into more efficient and responsive
  organizations

15

• Thank you for your attention and patience!
• PTA CERT-Hungary
• www.cert-hungary.hu
• Puskás Tivadar Közalapítvány
  www.neti.hu
• ENISA
• www.enisa.europa.eu