An analysis of more than 3,900 municipal calls for tenders carried out by the Public Procurement Authority (AMP) revealed that approximately 14% of them presented anomalies with regard to the various deadlines to be respected.
Posted at 5:16 p.m.
Half of the approximately 540 anomalies detected were in calls for tenders published on the Quebec government’s electronic tendering system (SEAO) by municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants.
They were found as part of a surveillance mandate carried out by the AMP between 1er October 2021 and March 31, 2022.
The anomalies most often noted were the absence of a deadline for filing a complaint, a non-compliant deadline or an insufficient time between the date of filing of complaints and the date of filing of tenders.
Critical deadlines
However, “the complaint process is an important mechanism, which allows an interested company to file a complaint with a public body and, possibly, with the AMP if it is of the opinion that the tender documents or the process of awarding a contract does not comply with the contractual rules in force”, specifies the watchdog of public contracts in a press release issued Thursday.
“Respecting deadlines is therefore essential in order to promote the integrity and transparency of the call for tenders process, as well as healthy competition between companies,” continues the AMP.
Luckily, many municipalities pinned down as part of this monitoring mandate were informed of the problems detected by the AMP, which allowed them to correct the breach in the process of being published, specifies the monitoring body.
No less than 400 calls for tenders have been the subject of corrections, adds the AMP.