RomânăThis analysis covers three areas of healthcare procurement: construction, laundry and catering services, for the period 2007-2021. Although statistically speaking they do not account for a very large part of a hospital’s expenditure, the aim is to better understand how the procurement process works and who are the beneficiaries of the procedures. The report aims to analyze whether there is a monopoly in procurement procedures and whether the success of firms participating in procurement is explained by capacity or other criteria (such as political).
About the data:
- The data used can be questioned to some extent. Much of this analysis was devoted to the collection and processing of data from the data.gov.ro portal. However, there are still serious doubts as to the quality of the data and in particular its completeness. As indicated, we have identified cases where follow-on contracts are missing.
- Data from 2007-2016 may be of lower quality and does not include follow-on contracts (essential to understand the disbursement of some funds through framework agreements), especially as they were collected through the old tender portal and later imported into SEAP, but data after 2016 does not appear to be complete either.
On procurement
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- Historically, there are certain periods when hospitals have spent more money on contracts, and they do not necessarily overlap across the three areas. In construction the heyday seems to be 2010-2016 (three quarters of the money) and in cleaning 60% of the money spent was contracted in 2016 and 2021.
- The data analysis shows that in all years and for all types of procurement, procedures with 1, 2 or 3 bids predominated, with very few cases with many bidders. This may be due to several situations: either there are not many firms interested to participate in procurement (although the market is quite bidding in the selected areas), or the contracts put on the market are not attractive enough, or there are certain monopolies, agreements or firms agreed by hospitals, which leads to a decrease in competition. In some areas there may not be too many options to buy on the market, and the provision of services by firms from other counties would not be justified. So in smaller localities we can raise these issues, but in municipalities it is harder to understand the low competitiveness
- Although the number of procedures concluded by negotiation without publication is not necessarily high, we have found that there is in several cases a temptation to conclude the procedure with the same firm. And we have shown several such situations in the report. Given the way in which this procedure was concluded, it is difficult for us to understand why it was used and how it ended up with the firms in question. This procedure does not have the same transparency rules as other types of competitive procurement and, at the same time, it also has very clear conditions under which it can be used. So, we cannot say whether it was justified or not, but it seems that there is a possible collusion between firms and hospitals in a few cases
- We have identified cases – relatively few – where contracting authorities have entered into contracts through direct purchases above the allowable limit. For example, the Administration of Pre-University Education and Public Health Units – Sector 1 concluded a contract for 3.8 million lei.
- There are firms that have only been successful with certain hospitals for certain types of services, which could illustrate political or power links. It is not necessarily a rule and we should also emphasize that some of these firms have the capacity to provide these services; but here the question arises about the source of the capacity – did they get contracts because they showed capacity or did they grow because they got contracts in a clientelistic way.
- We can observe that several firms illustrated in the above descriptions had/have shareholders or other decision-makers representing political parties, were set up by politicians, or have power links, explicable in various ways, with contracting authorities. Of course, the political party affiliation of a partner or director does not automatically create success for a company participating in procurement; but it does raise questions especially if the firm is successful in the region where it operates or with institutions in the party’s area of influence.
- Under framework agreements, we identified a few situations (described in the report) where one company won all the follow-on agreements, although there were several initial bidders. There may be many causes for these situations, which we cannot see from the outside, but these repetitions raise questions, especially when we are talking about a large number of contracts and high amounts. However, this does not seem to be the rule.
- Construction companies are not necessarily transparent. On a brief search, many of the firms with significant procurements do not have a webpage illustrating ownership, management, track record or if they do, they are minimal.
Project funded by the US Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) and coordinated by the CEELI Institute.
CEELI is a Prague-based non-profit organization dedicated to developing and training an international network of legal professionals committed to promoting the rule of law. Through innovative training programs and other activities, the Institute works with judges, lawyers and civil society actors to build societies based on the rule of law.