Consultations on the draft bill regarding public procurement certification

The Ministry of Development sent for public consultation a draft bill on certification of public procurement contractors and amendments to certain other laws last week. It provides for introducing a certification system in public procurement procedures into Polish law. The project will directly improve the situation for all entities seeking public procurement in Poland, including foreign investors, by reducing the administrative burden and lowering the cost of participation in procurement procedures.

Contractors’ participation in procurement proceedings conducted under the Public Procurement Law is subject to the fulfillment of certain requirements under the provisions of the statute and the terms and conditions of the individual proceedings. The contractor is required to demonstrate that there are no grounds for excluding them from the tender and fulfill the necessary requirements, such as having appropriately qualified personnel. In the current state of the law, all these circumstances must be proven by submitting many documents required by the contracting authority, constituting a significant formal burden that raises the cost of participating in the proceedings. It also makes it more difficult for the contracting authority to carry out the procedure correctly. Currently, the presence of numerous additional obligations of a formal nature is one of the most frequently cited barriers to accessing the public procurement market.

The introduction of certification will allow a contractor to replace numerous documents or declarations with an appropriate certificate issued by an authorized certification body after the contractor’s verification process. Certificates will be awarded by entities accredited by the Polish Accreditation Center and posted in a publicly available and free database. Such a certificate, issued for 1 to 3 years, will allow contractors in Poland to participate in many different contract award procedures in Poland and other European Union countries without having to collect and submit other documents each time.

Certification for contractors will be voluntary. Its introduction is expected to promote the professionalization and transparency of the contractor verification process through the participation of professional certifiers and reduce the cost of involvement in the proceedings. The ministry also aims to increase the efficiency of the public procurement system by standardizing the requirements set by ordering entities as part of the conditions for participation in the proceedings. 

The Ministry of Development, responsible for preparing the draft, has set a 30-day consultation period. After the Deregulation Bill, this is another project for which Deputy Minister Jacek Tomczak is responsible.

If your company would like AmCham to develop a position on this issue, please send your opinions in Polish by May 6, 2024, to [email protected].