Filenews 17 August 2022 - by Vassos Vassiliou
The start of public works is delayed from a few weeks to a few months, because companies that take part in the bids, often unjustifiably delay the process with the assistance of the Tenders Revision Authority and even to the detriment of the public interest and taxpayers.
This results from the statistics kept by the Tenders Revision Authority itself and relating to the period 2004-2020. It is worth noting that in some cases the contested offers judge the energy sufficiency of the country or other important issues that affect the lives of citizens.
For example, while in 2019 the Reviewing Authority approved 94.7% of the requests for the issuance of "interim measures", which deprived the state services of the right to award the bids until the appeals were heard, in the end it achieved a percentage of 31.6% while another percentage of 8.8% were withdrawn, which means that 68.4% of complaints were registered completely unjustifiably. For the delay observed and for the possible increase in costs (due to an increase in materials and labour) no one pays except the taxpayer.
Respectively, in the year 2020, almost 74.4% of the provisional measures were adopted, 23.3% were rejected and 2.3% were withdrawn.
When the appeals were examined in 2019, they succeeded at a rate of 31.6%, they were rejected at a rate of 59.6%, while 8.8% were withdrawn.
Moreover, in 2020, 58.1% of appeals were rejected, 4.7% were withdrawn and 37.2% were approved.
Based on the percentages of all years of operation of the Authority (2004-2020) on average 34% of the Appeals registered before it succeed, 54% are rejected and 12% are withdrawn from the Applicants.
According to the data of the Reviewing Authority, from 2004 to 2020 the average time of completion of the procedure before the Authority is about 110 days (3.7 months). TAPPhe examination time ranges from 41 days (1.4 months) to 158 days (5.3 months) on average.
The unreality of the appeals and protests of many companies, which are protesting against the decisions of state agencies, is also confirmed by court decisions. Specifically, and always according to the data of the Reviewing Authority, the percentage of court decisions that either vindicate the Revision Authority or withdraw, amounts to 77%. Against the 1,329 decisions issued by the Authority (period 2004-2020) 201 appeals have been registered before the Administrative Court. That is, about 15% on average of the decisions given by the Authority are appealed to the Court of Justice. More specifically, for the years that the cases before the Court have been completed (2004-2011 and 2013) the validation rates of the decisions of the Tender Review Authority amount, on average, to 77%, while if taken into account all the years of the Authority's operation, the validation rate of its decisions amounts to 58%. It is noted that 27% of cases are pending.
INTERVENTION
It is paid for by the citizens
One would expect that the state would be so organized or would acquire such specialization that it would not announce bids with errors, weaknesses, etc., leading to their cancellation. He would also expect that the Tender Reviewing Authority would gain such experience as to distinguish when a claim before it has a chance of success or whether it is registered for unrelated and unsubstantiated reasons. Furthermore, he would have expected that the Reviewing Authority, when invoking reasons of public interest, would mainly take into account the public interest and not the interest of the private individual who appeals and who, mainly, focuses and claims his own interests. Because, in the end, the disruption is paid for by the citizen.
