Ustymenko V, Soshnykov A, Tokarska A, Makarenko O, Nesterenko K
1State Organization «V. Mamutov Institute of Economic and Legal Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine», Kyiv; Ukraine.
2Lviv Polytechnic National University; Ukraine.
Georgian Med News. 2021 Mar(312):157-163.
This article aims to analyse the implementation of public procurement procedures in the context of national governments' fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and find solutions for adapting those public procurement procedures that are currently used in the healthcare sector to new challenges. For this above purpose, we have applied both theoretical methods such as analysis, synthesis, generalization, and empirical methods such as observation, etc. The research has yielded the following findings: 1) there are no one-size-fits-all solutions in the national governments' fight against the COVID-19 pandemic through the public procurement mechanism, except that national policies in this field intend to speed up the organisation of the public procurement procedures, which would shorten the time for the delivery of medical goods to healthcare facilities; 2) due to the current emergency conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, public procurements of medical supplies are taking place under the non-competitive procedure, i. e. with direct contracting of a specific vendor, which essentially increases corruption risks and allows for subjective decision making; 3) amid the increased corruption risks, there is a need to assign high priority to strengthening the public control (monitoring), as well as the governmental control over medical procurements; 4) saving of public funds as the underlying principle of some national public procurement systems becomes irrelevant in the face of such threats as the global COVID-19 pandemic; 5) it is quite difficult to speak of another principle - effective use of public funds - because we are now dealing with an emergency and the actors (both the government and the expert community) lack understanding of how things might potentially develop in the future. Thus, the authors offer the following solutions: 1) create temporary specialized bodies, with the cross-agency powers, at the national and regional levels, that would take on such functions as: coordination of procurements; needs analysis of particular areas in medical supplies; management of potential vendors. These measures may help make medical procurements as effective as possible in these current conditions; 2) develop special procedures (mechanisms), by national governments, for conducting checks of public procurements in the healthcare sector that are made as part of the response measures against the COVID-19 pandemic, because those check algorithms that are in place today cannot take into account the realities of this particular emergency situation and the conditions in which those procurements are made.
本文旨在分析在各国政府抗击新冠疫情的背景下公共采购程序的实施情况，并找出应对办法，使目前医疗领域所采用的公共采购程序适应新挑战。出于上述目的，我们运用了分析、综合、归纳等理论方法以及观察等实证方法。研究得出以下结论：1）各国政府通过公共采购机制抗击新冠疫情不存在一刀切的解决方案，不过该领域的国家政策旨在加快公共采购程序的组织工作，这将缩短医疗物资交付至医疗机构的时间；2）由于新冠疫情造成的当前紧急状况，医疗物资的公共采购正在非竞争性程序下进行，即直接与特定供应商签约，这在本质上增加了腐败风险并允许主观决策；3）在腐败风险增加的情况下，有必要高度优先加强公共监督（监测）以及政府对医疗采购的管控；4）面对全球新冠疫情这样的威胁，一些国家公共采购系统的基本原则——节约公共资金变得无关紧要；5）很难提及另一原则——有效使用公共资金，因为我们现在应对的是紧急情况，而且行动者（政府和专家群体）都不清楚未来情况可能如何发展。因此，作者提出以下解决方案：1）在国家和地区层面设立具有跨部门权力的临时专门机构，其将承担以下职能：采购协调；医疗物资特定领域的需求分析；潜在供应商管理。这些措施可能有助于在当前情况下使医疗采购尽可能高效；2）各国政府制定特殊程序（机制），用于对作为抗击新冠疫情应对措施一部分的医疗领域公共采购进行检查，因为目前的检查算法无法考虑到这一特殊紧急情况的现实以及进行这些采购的条件。
