To resolve status of Commission for Protection of Rights urgently

 

Transparency – Serbia warns the public that, already very unsatisfactory status of Commission for Protection of Rights (CPR) is additionally jeopardized with unexplainable Government's failure to fulfill its duty from article 102 para. 2 and article 123 of the Public Procurement Law (PPL), i.e. to propose to National Assembly candidates CPR members. New PPL, in force since January 6 th this year, anticipates that Commission, which so far used poor resources of Public Procurement Office, finally obtains institutional independence and complete independence from those conducting procurements. That kind of independence is necessary, because Commission decides on legality of tenders worth millions and because of that must not be under influence of executive authority. Only after election of members, Commission could hire necessary number of servants, control its own budget and receive premises for performing of important activities.

 

New Law prescribes that National Assembly should elect members of Commission until July 6 th 2009. Unfortunately, that didn't happen since the Government still didn't nominated candidates. We believe that this large omission in regards of creating better conditions for control of legality of public procurements was unintentional and Government will remove every doubt if in days to come propose qualified candidates for post in this new independent organ.

 

Transparency – Serbia

 

Belgrade , 10 July 2009.