Tenders in Azerbaijan: "funny and hilarious."..

Baku/05.09.22/Turan: One of the weakest links of the Azerbaijani economy are state tenders with their high corrupt practices recognized by the state.

Turan reported on the opacity of tenders in Azerbaijan in a published interview with an economist

Contrary to the Law on Public Procurement adopted in 2001, the purchase of goods and services by government agencies continues outside tenders due to loopholes in this Law.

Attracting foreign investments into the country's economy is an important component of the economic development strategy of the Republic of Azerbaijan. However, the corruption pushes foreign companies away from Azerbaijan, and local businessmen prefer to open large business projects abroad.

Fikret Mammadov, director of the "Sage Solutions" business consulting company - promoter of more than 200 international franchises in Azerbaijan, is well aware of the shortcomings in the tender market of Azerbaijan. He told Turan that an American company, which Mammadov has no right to name, ordered "Sage Solutions" to study the tender market of Azerbaijan. "Sage Solutions" took part in some tenders to observe the behavior of the bidders from the inside.

"The task is to find out how honest and transparent tenders are held in our country, what is the level of corruption. The study was conducted on 28 state agencies. At first, the Americans planned to monitor 28 state organizations, but then it turned out that there are much more of them in the country. "The Americans intend to put the results of our research on the President's desk. Let's see what happens," Mammadov said in an interview with Turan.

He highly appreciated the state website е-tender.gov.az The problems arise outside the site, in real life, when one and the same organization demonstrates different approaches to accepting documents for different tenders or freaks out with quotes. Or sets impossible technical tasks which are impossible if you do not know a result of the tender in advance and do not start preparing ahead of time). By category, this is about 32 different frauds, - said F.Mammadov.

The authors of the study are amazed by the abundance of tender conditions that make it difficult to honestly participate in tenders of companies that are not related with the state by corruption threads.

"Funny and hilarious... Unrealistic requirements, confusing technical conditions, and impossible deadlines - award a tender for the organization of an event that needs to be held in three days,so  you have to organize everything there.

For instance, a public legal entity "Sosial Təqqiqatlar Mərkəzi" is minded to buy four chandeliers. Below cited are technical conditions as follows:

-Diameter 1000 cm, height 600 cm, made of crystal, 30 lamps are arranged in 12 rows, in the shape of a circle. A total of 409 pieces of crystal transparent parts, consisting of 24% crystal. The metal color of the chandelier is gold. The weight of each chandelier is 50-60 kg.

In terms of the tender, everything is so predetermined that even the number of lenses is prescribed in the amount of 409 pcs. The offer with 410 lenses is not accepted," F. Mammadov noted.

"Another scam: the organizers request quotation rates. Get three digits. Then they announce a tender where they take one of their participants and two "extras". The participant knows the quotation limits (minimum and maximum). So if someone comes from the outside, he does not know these prices, and therefore gives his figures. The organizers can disqualify the "newcomer" for giving a price that does not meet the criteria set initially with due regard for  kickbacks and other behind-the-scenes affairs."

In two months, "Sage Solutions" analysts have identified more than 700 violations in tenders of nearly all government agencies. They will prepare a report. They say that eventually it will end up on the table of very high bosses," F. Mammadov told Turan. -0-