Bulgaria's Parliament Thursday passed on first reading amendments to the Public Procurement Act, introducing direct award of procurements to companies related to the contracting authority which is a local or regional authority.
This procedure will be admissible only for utility service contracts. "The revisions are prompted by the need to improve quality control on public procurement awards and to reduce the cases of irregularities and mistakes. On the other hand, the idea is to simplify and clarify the formulations so as to ease the bureacratic burden on the contracting authorities and on the participants in the proedure," the reasoning says. (Source: BTA)