OREANDA-NEWS. November 07, 2008. In June-October 2008 the Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (OFAS Russia) in the Komi Republic fined 24 officials at the federal, regional and municipal levels for breaching the state procurement legislation. Total fines amounted to 830 000 Rubles, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The punished officials represented tender and auction organizers and ordering parties for supplying goods, executing works and offering services out of the budgetary funds. The violations punished by fines were committed by: the Ministry of Finances of the Komi Republic, the Office of the Federal Treasury in the Komi Republic, the Sosnogorsk District Authority, the Institute of Biology of the Komi Scientific Centre of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Ukhta Municipal Procurement Department, Syktyvkar College of Commerce and Economics, No.520 Technical Vocational College, Syktyvkar, and three pre-school childcare centers in Ezhvinsky District, Syktyvkar.

The most common violations included: organizing tenders instead of auctions, as required by law; failure to publish the required information; assigning wrong significance to the bid evaluation criteria; setting unlawful bid pre-qualification restrictions and allowing participation of the bidders whose bids should have been rejected. For all unlawful actions, the Komi OFAS Russia issued determinations to eliminate the violations, except the cases when the organizations voluntarily and promptly eliminated the violations.

"Typically the state procurement violations related to tenders and auctions happen because members of the tender and auctions commission lack the necessary qualification. The problem is systemic and should be solved primarily at the level of the structures that place the orders", said Natalia Gurevskaya, the Deputy Head of the Komi OFAS Russia.

Failure by the officials to comply with the Federal Law "On State and Municipal Procurement of Goods, Works and Services" leads to restricting equal and free access of economic entities to state and municipal resources, which in the end forms the grounds for corruption.

Control over compliance with the state procurement legislation is given priority in the work of the antimonopoly body.