E-procurement

Maja Ledjenac, one of the 191 journalists at the TV station in Serbia's northern province of Vojvodina, told BIRN on Tuesday that their positions were uncertain because their contracts could not be transferred from RTV to a private consortium on March 1 as previously envisaged.

The controversial decision to restart a tender procedure for the design and construction of Bulgaria's road toll system has been blocked by yet another appeal, officials have confirmed.

The tender will be brought to a halt, Focus News Agency quotes outgoing Regional Development Minister Lilyana Pavlova as saying.

A new report, presented on Wednesday, argues that during the monitoring period the Public Procurement Commission uncovered hundreds of legal breaches by officials in hundreds of cases but imposed only a single administrative fine and did not refer any cases to the prosecutor's office.

Bulgaria's Public Procurement Agency, which is currently accountable to Economy Minister Bozhidar Lukarski, will be transferred to the portfolio of Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov, according to a set of draft amendments to the Public Procurement Act.

The legal changes, as cited by the BGNES news agency, have been released for public debate.

"Flood recovery procurement was transparent"

BELGRADE -- Procurements for recovery from the floods were transparent, Transparency Serbia NGO said on Friday, according to Tanjug.

BELGRADE - The stake of open procedures in public procurement processes increased to 86 percent in the first half of 2014, from 54 percent recorded in the first half of 2013, while the stake of negotiating procedures without public procurement announcements dropped from 24 to 4 percent, Director of the Public Procurement Office of the Republic of Serbia Predrag Jovanovic stated on Tuesday.

Public procurement procedures worth BGN 30 M were launched in the healthcare sector during the last days of Plamen Oresharski's cabinet, the interim Health Minister revealed.

Miroslav Nenkov said on Thursday they were to be frozen as they contained a number of flaws, including in the tenders envisaged.

Flood damage report to be submitted by July 9

BELGRADE -- Head of the government office for reconstruction Marko Blagojević says final figures on the damage from the recent floods in Serbia will be known by July 9.

Speaking on Sunday, he added that the reconstruction of the damaged homes will begin in July and should be completed by September.

EU praises new procurement law in BiH

In an effort to end corruption in purchasing of goods from outside sources, the BiH parliament adopted a new law.

Parliament adopted the law on April 30th. [parliament.ba]