Procedure – within just a day
While public procurement procedures might appear slow and time-consuming and sometimes lasting even several months, there are useful exceptions, and during certain situations such as the migrant crisis, procurement law does not limit the effective and reasonably priced purchase of necessary goods and services.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, public procurement law changes were implemented, which established that certain procedures may be eschewed when necessary to protect the public interest. Article 71 of the law mentioned above grants the right to purchase goods, services, and work through private negotiations, including cases where the procurement must be completed urgently due to an occurrence that could not be predicted.
Respectively, it is possible to directly negotiate with specific suppliers or several business subjects without announcing a long-lasting tender, and various formal procedures are also unnecessary. Only one day might pass from receiving the offer to concluding the negotiations and signing the relevant protocols.
Pandemic lessons
It is recommended to publicly announce interest in the purchase of an approximate type of fencing and certain works, and businesses would then be invited to offer goods as well as delivery and work deadlines. This would operate based on the legislative logic of carrying all objectives out in as public as possible a manner and to ensure transparency, and by also performing minimal analyses, it is possible to secure the best cost to benefit ratio and avoid ’golden fence’ scandals.
In order to promptly resolve the problem of the migrant crisis and also protect the public interest, we will likely face higher prices than usual. Of course, one price is rational when you are in no rush and when there is much choice and freedom to plan, but then again, rational pricing might be far higher because the situation is different: there is high demand but insufficient supply, difficult conditions, urgent manufacturing and delivery, installation deadlines, which is all to be taken into account.
And one cannot by any means compare the cost of building a fence when the national situation is relatively calm to the current situation when the problem is even being described as an existential challenge to the state. Of course, the goods and work are purchased by negotiations, and so we should not accept offers unconditionally and without negotiation.
Lastly, let’s not forget that Lithuania gained much experience in managing the pandemic in this regard - public procurements were announced and private negotiations were performed to purchase medical masks and equipment for medics, ensuring the best possible public healthcare and quickly.
And so, we must now avoid getting embroiled in lengthy discussions of whether legislative amendments are necessary with regards to materials to build a border wall. Relevant and EU-compliant legislation already exists, and this may also aid in handling the international migrant crisis.
