Date/Time
Date(s) - 20/07/2018 - 31/03/2020
12:00 am

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Public procurement is one of the Albanian government activities that is most vulnerable to corruption. In addition to the volume of transactions and the financial interests at stake, corruption risks are increased by the complexity of the process, the close interaction between public officials and businesses, and the considerable interests of different stakeholders.

Various types of corrupt acts may exploit these vulnerabilities, such as embezzlement, undue influence in the needs assessment, bribery of public officials involved in the award process, or fraud in bid evaluations, invoices or contract obligations. In Albania, significant corruption risks arise from conflict of interest in the decision-making process.

Our organization, the Albanian Center for Social Services DDAER,is dedicated to improving social services and to achieving a sustainable impact on the improvement of the quality of life of the community. Created in 2014, the main goal of our existing and future projects is to encourage responsible and accountable services for the Albanian societyand we believe that increasing integrity in public procurement, contributes to achieving exactly that outcome.

Objective:

In the above framework, this project has as its main objective to contribute in fighting corruption in public procurement in Albania, through increased integrity for public procurement officials.Avoidance of conflict of interest from these officials will also mean more transparency for the process and more accessibility of the public regarding public procurement details. Moreover, although there have been projects aimed at increasing transparency of public procurement, no other project has focused specifically on increasing integrity of public procurement officials, through the development of proper guidelines. Actually, the matter of integrity is often left at minimum criteria established by law, without any further elaboration on it. In this sense, our project brings novelty because it uses the integrity approach, which is at best undeveloped in Albania, in fighting corruption in public procurement.

Methodology, activities and timeframe:

Fighting corruption is a very big challenge and very often there are no holistic, cure-all methodologies. However, based on internationally renowned reports and standards set out by OECD in the area of public procurement and more concretely, in the area of integrity in public procurement, the following methodology will be applied respectively for each of the intended activities of the project:

Activity 1 – Assessment report regarding integrity in public procurement

Activity 2 – Developing integrity standards for public procurement officials

Activity 3 –  Training of public procurement officials

Activity 4 – Publishing and Promoting Report on Integrity Standards in Public Procurement

Expected results:

– The project will increase one of the underestimated components so far of fighting corruption in public procurement, integrity of public officials.

– Through the creation and publication of the integrity guidelines, as well as through the training of public procurement staff, the project will build and strengthen capacities in fighting corruption in public procurement.

– Moreover, the project will raise awareness of the importance of creating sustainable tools against corruption and lack of integrity in public procurement, which ultimately serves the best interest of bidders, service clients and the society as the most important stakeholder.