Professional Associations in Bulgaria Want to Organize Construction Procurement

Professional associations of architects and construction engineers in Bulgaria have voiced the desire to hold public procurement procedures in the sphere of construction.

"The state must assign the organization of competitions for everything related to construction, architecture, and the engineering sphere to the Union of Architects in Bulgaria and the Chambers of Architects and Engineers," said Michail Petkov, architect, at a round table discussion organized by the Union of Architects in Bulgaria.

Petkov, as cited by the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA), argued that professional organizations had a better capacity to select the good projects than chief architects and other officials at municipalities.

Petkov made clear that the Union of Architects in Bulgaria was preparing proposals for amendments to the Public Procurement Act.

Public procurement procedures in the sphere of construction are to be standardized at the initiative of the Bulgarian Construction Chamber, investor.bg reminds.

The preparation of standardized contracts is underway and after they take effect, standardized tender terms will be drafted for public procurement in the sphere of construction.

The steps are to put an end to the subjective selection of contractors and to terminate the publication of suggestive terms.

During Thursday's discussion, Ivo Hrisov, Associate Professor in Sociology of Law, suggested that the existing public procurement legal framework only made procedures more cumbersome and resulted in regular violations.

"If the purpose of the law was to spend public money in a public and transparent manner, this aim, to put it mildly, is hard to achieve. What is more, while allegedly attempting to protect public interest, the law creates burdens through taxing preliminary statutory requirements, which very often open the door to corruption," Hristov declared.