On April 23, some clauses of the Law of Ukraine 2958-IX amending the Law of Ukraine “On Defense Procurement” became valid. They refer to publishing announcements on purchasing “non-weapon” defense goods and services, such as food, clothes, fuel, etc. These clauses become valid in 30 days after the date of law publishing (which took place on March 24). According to the Ministry of Defense, from now on, these announcements will be made one business day prior to publishing in the electronic purchasing system. If the purchases are made without using the electronic purchasing system, the Ministry shall provide a public report to this effect.
Thus, if UAH 200,000 worth of goods or more are purchased outside the electronic system, a report shall be published within ten business days from the date of the agreement conclusion. What concerns the services, the “start” value of the contract will total UAH 1.5 billion. In addition, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) shall publish the reports on all agreements concluded from February 24 until March 24 of this year by June 22, 2023. It was also announced that the Prozorro system will gain a module for the MoD to publish the reports on all the purchases of the goods, works, and services mentioned in the law.
Please be reminded that previously, the Minister of Defence of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov stated that the entity would begin publishing the purchase prices in ProZorro when the corresponding resource is provided. “ProZorro does not offer all the functions we need. It is a technical issue. The experts have to run a special portal for us. Its working title is Military ProZorro,” he explained.
However, we in NAKO are sure that these legislative changes are insufficient to solve all the issues of accountability and transparency of defense purchases. Data to be published does not provide the capacity of assessing the fairness of the agreement price, for instance. In addition, it would be impossible to check the completeness and timeliness of this information. So, to develop an efficient system of the Ukrainian Armed Forces supplies complying with the NATO standards, we need to carry on with reforming the defense procurement.