One-bid tenders are the norm
Public contracts very often tend to become direct concessions, with little transparency
More than three out of every seven public contracts are awarded following procedures in which there was only one tender, and even when there is more than one tender the average per procedure is only 2.6 participants.
These revealing findings are included in a recent report by the European Court of Auditors and confirm that public contracts, despite successive changes in the institutional framework, remain an “open wound” for public revenues, but also a source of corruption and entanglement and of course distortion of competition. Although according to the report, Greece presents one of the lowest percentages of direct concessions in the European Union, at the same time it shows a large percentage of contracts in which segmentation has taken place – that often hides “sharing” of the market and direct concessions – and a very low rate of publication of contracts on the European electronic platform for public procurement, known as TED (Tenders Electronic Daily).
At the same time, Greece is one of the worst in terms of delays from the decision on a contract to its eventual awarding.
According to the report of the European Court of Auditors, 42.8% of public contracts (the rate is based on the procedures and not on the value of the contracts) in Greece were awarded after procedures where there was only one offer. This is the fourth highest percentage in the EU, while it is worth noting that in 2011 the corresponding percentage was much lower, 14.9%.
There are not a few cases where open or closed tenders are actually direct assignments, as the conditions of the notice are “photographic” so that a specific company meets the conditions and therefore is alone in submitting a bid.
Even in the cases of contracts awarded following procedures in which there was more than one bid, the number of bids is very low. According to the report, in Greece there were 2.6 offers per tender in 2021, compared to 14.1 in 2011. Often the same participants keep reappearing in different tenders.
