Spain: Lack of open bidding causes 9bn euros in extra costs, regulator says

A recent report by the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) calculates that if open bidding procedures had been used, which allow greater competition, in all public sector bids registered between 2012 and 2017 Spain will be could have saved 8.8 billion euros.

 

The cost of public procurement would have been at least 1.7 billion euros in the 2012-2016 period, practically 10% of the total amount. However, the contracts included in the public sector register only amount to 2% of GDP, when both the OECD and other agencies estimate that public procurement in Spain reaches almost 20% of GDP.

The report released by the CNMC also demonstrates “little competition in public procurement”. For example, tenders with few participants are frequent: in almost 24% of state contracts there is a single participant and in 65% of the contracts there are three or fewer participants.

The CNMC made its calculations after analyzing more than 36,000 contracts from the Central Administration and extrapolates the conclusions of its study to the public sector as a whole. According to the report, there is “little competition in public procurement” in Spain.

Full Content: El Periodico

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