Analysis of the Impact of Transparency, Corruption, Openness in Competition and Tender Procedures on Public Procurement in the Czech Republic
Analysis of the Impact of Transparency, Corruption, Openness in Competition and Tender Procedures on Public Procurement in the Czech Republic

Summary/Abstract: This study analyses the impact of transparency and openness to competition in public procurement in the Czech Republic. The problems of the Czech procurement market have been demonstrated on the analysis of a sample of contracts awarded by local government entities. From among a set of factors influencing the efficiency of public procurement, we closely analyse transparency, resilience against corruption, openness, effective administrative award procedure, and formulation of appropriate evaluation criteria for selecting the most suitable bid. Some assumptions were confirmed, including a positive effect of open procedures on the level of competition on the supply side as well as the dominant use of price criteria only. The latter case is probably often caused by low skills of workers at the contracting entities, as well as the lack of resources in public budgets. However, we have to reject the persistent legend of “undershooting” tender prices and subsequently increasing the final prices of public contracts. Increases of final prices are very limited. Based on the results of the analyses presented, we argue that the main problem of the Czech public procurement market lies in a rather low competence of administrators who are not able to use non-price criteria more often.

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