The Federation Council clarified Matvienko’s proposal on a moratorium on the contract system

The Federation Council (SF) is considering the issue of introducing a moratorium not on the entire federal law No. 44 “On the contract system in the field of procurement of goods, works, services to meet state and municipal needs”, but on those of its provisions that delay the implementation of public procurement. Nikolai Zhuravlev, vice-speaker of the Federation Council, informed journalists about this.

According to him, senators receive signals from the regions that “the additional powers of the constituent entities of the federation are not synchronized with subsequent inspections and measures of responsibility, clearer criteria and grounds are needed, simplification of requirements for a request for the provision of price information, and elimination of the impact of lengthy appeal procedures on the construction time of facilities “.

“We propose to discuss the powers of customers to choose faster and simpler procurement procedures (requests for quotations) and provide for a moratorium on the obligation to conduct complex, lengthy types of purchases (auctions), as well as on limiting small-volume purchases through an electronic store. We are also discussing an accelerated procurement procedure using the register of bona fide suppliers and permission to start trading before bringing the limits of budgetary funds to the regions,” Zhuravlev said. In his opinion, “all these measures will allow customers to choose the most optimal method of procurement and significantly reduce the time of procurement procedures.”

The day before, the speaker of the Federation Council, Valentina Matvienko, at a meeting of the upper house of parliament, proposed a moratorium on FZ-44 until the end of the special military operation in Ukraine (SVO), in order to speed up the disbursement of funds for the implementation of infrastructure projects in the regions. A high-ranking official, in an interview with Vedomosti, called this idea “absolutely unrealistic”, expressing confidence that neither Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov nor First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov would go ahead with it.

The press service of the Ministry of Finance told Vedomosti that “the current legislation provides all the necessary tools for concluding contracts in the shortest possible time, including both within the framework of competitive procedures, and without their use, according to decisions of the executive authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and local administrations “.