OREANDA-NEWS. May 15, 2009. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) has investigated a complaint of GOU VPO UrGYuA that the Tender Commission of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation violated the Law "On State and Municipal Procurement of Goods, Works and Services" in organising an open tender for devising a draft normative legal act on agricultural-and-industrial complex - "The Draft Federal Law "On Industry Unions and Associations in Agriculture", reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The Petitioner complained that on 30th March 2009 (the day before the opening of the tender bids) the Petitioner had delivered its marked tender bid by DHL express delivery service (an officer of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation had signed for receipt). However, the Tender Commission did not open the Petitioner's bid on 31st March 2009.

Investigating the case, the FAS Russia's Commission established that the bid opening had been scheduled for 31st March 2009.According to a letter from "DHL International" CJSC, the Petitioner's bid was delivered to the Ordering Party at 13.30 a.m. on 30th March 2009, and an officer of the Ministry signed for receipt. Nevertheless, members of the Commission did not receive the bid before the bids opening procedure.

Thus, the Tender Commission did not duly open the bid, which was in breach of Part 10 Article 25 and Part 1 Article 26 of the Law "On State Procurement…" and has the signs of an administrative violation under Part 1 Article 7.30 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Violations.

Having processed the case, the FAS Russia's Commission found the complaint justified.

In course of an unscheduled inspection the FAS Russia's Commission established that the Petitioner's bid included an authorisation for payment to secure the tender bid, in which the account had not matched the account of the Ordering Party specified in the tender documentation, which constitutes the grounds for rejecting a tender bid in accord with Clause 4 Part 1 Article 12 of the Law "On State Procurement…".

Also the tender documentation required that a bid, an offer on quality characteristics of the goods, and a power of attorney must be singed by a chief accountant. Setting the requirements to the bidders for signing the above documents by a chief accountant violated Part 4 Article 25 of the Law "On State Procurement…".

Reference:
94-FZ Federal Law "On State and Municipal Procurement of Goods, Works and Services" came into force in January 2006.

The Law is aimed at increasing transparency of state and municipal procurement, and preventing corruption and abuse to determine the best conditions for execution of governmental contracts. The main objective of the Law is to save state budgetary funds.

In 2008 enforcement of the Federal Law "On State Procurement…" saved the state budget around 260 billion Rubles, in 2007 -168 billion Rubles, and in 2006 -106 billion Rubles.