Press Release
C. 05-13 th
El Salvador, March 15 , 2013.
CS trains public procurement officers in detecting anticompetitive bids The Competition Superintendence (CS) jointly with the Regulatory Unit for Public Procurement (in Spanish, Unidad Normativa de Adquisiciones y Contrataciones, “UNAC”, its acronym in El Salvador) of the Ministry of Finance, with the support of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), concluded today a training program for more than one hundred public procurement officials in the prevention of anticompetitive practices in the Public Administration´s purchases and acquisitions. “The CS must work in cooperation and coordination with the PPOs in order for them to prevent and detect bid rigging and provide the CS with the necessary information for the beginning of preliminary investigations or of a administrative sanctioning proceeding, as the case may be”, asserted Francisco Diaz Rodriguez, Competition Superintendent.
The CS jointly with the Regulatory Unit for Public Procurement carried out a training program for public procurement officials to contribute in the identification of unnecessary barriers to have access to public procurement processes, as well as in the detection of bid rigging in said procedures in order to insure the execution of the aforementioned processes under competition conditions and more efficiency in public expenditure. Through bid rigging, competitors in a public tender fraudulently manipulate the offers filed, in order to determine who will win the procurement process. These conducts are prohibited by the Salvadoran Competition Law (CL); they distort the Public Administration´s purchases and acquisitions; increase the prices paid for the acquired goods and services, damaging the market against the efficient use of the State´s resources. th
The above cited training program which began on March 11 and finalized today, was aimed for than one hundred heads of the public procurement offices (PPOs) of the Public Administration, local governments, and autonomous institutions; and was carried out as part of the Program: Strengthening Institutions and Capacities in Competition and Consumer Protection Policies”, (COMPAL II).
The participating public procurement officials were divided according to the size and type of institution to which each one belonged to. The first day was dedicated to autonomous institutions; the second to the local governments of Santa Ana, Soyapango, Ahuachapán, Santa Tecla, amongst others; the third day to national hospitals of the country; and the last day to ministries and institutions that report considerable volume of purchases, such as: the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, and Hydroelectric Executive Commission of the Lempa River (in Spanish, Comisión Ejecutiva Hidroeléctrica del Río Lempa, “CEL”), amongst others. The CS presented to the participants, in a practical and participative manner, the techniques on how to enforce the Competition and Public Procurement Manual which contains the tools to prevent bid rigging, to identify alert signs of said heinous conducts and of the procedures to denounce them.
Furthermore, this training program helped the assistants develop the necessary abilities and capacities for them to correctly interpret and apply competition legislation regarding public procurement processes, as well as to promote permanent communication amongst the UNAC, the PPOs, and the CS. About bid rigging This type of agreements attack the competitive process in the free market, being the State the principal victim, since their existence prevents the State from acquiring better quality goods and services at lower prices. Said agreements are expressly forbidden by the CL: “Art. 25.- Anticompetitive practices among competitors are prohibited, amongst others, the following: c) Fix or limit prices at auctions or in any other form bidding private or public, national or international, with the exception of the joint bids submitted by economic agents that are clearly identified as such in the documents submitted by the bidders”.
Background In 2009, the CS sanctioned four travel agencies for bid rigging in public procurement processes carried out by the Ministry of Economy and by the Salvadoran Tourism Corporation, having agreed on the commissions to be charged for issuing airplane tickets. The fines totaled US$21,325.50. That same year, the CS launched its manual “Detecting and Preventing Bid Rigging in Public Procurement Processes”, to guide public procurement officers on how to prevent and detect rid rigging or fraud in public procurement procedures in El Salvador. Recently in February 2013, the CS sanctioned two companies for bid rigging in a public procurement procedure carried out by the National Administration of Aqueducts and Sewage System (ANDA, its acronym in El Salvador).