What is the ANI?
On its website, the National Integrity Agency (ANI) describes itself as “just the central piece or the powerhouse of a complex mechanism that assesses, identifies and sanctions integrity digressions.” In its eight years of activity, the Agency has set up one of the largest databases of declarations of assets and declarations of interest (5.5 million documents), and completed over 10,000 files for the identification of integrity incidents involving public officers, members of parliament, members of Government, heads of local government institutions, etc.
The European Union, European Council and the awarding of public procurement contracts
The 2016-2020 Strategy for Preventing and Sanctioning Conflicts of Interests, Incompatibilities and Unjustified Wealth relies, inter alia, on the recommendations made in the GRECO[1] and MCV[2] reports, its primary specific objective being that of “preventing conflicts of interest in public procurements.”
New elements
October 2016 saw the enactment of Law No. 184/2016 setting up a mechanism to prevent conflicts of interest in the awarding of public procurement contracts.
Under this law, an integrated computerised system called the “Prevention System” will be created within the ANI, in order to prevent and identify possible conflicts of interest.
The Prevention System will operate databases with information collected from the integrity forms in the Electronic System for Public Procurement (SEAP). It will also manage the necessary information which, under the law, is held by the Directorate for Individual Record and Database Management – a department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - and by the National Trade Register Office, respectively.
A first element of novelty is the ex ante verification of situations likely to cause conflicts of interest in procedures initiated via the electronic system for public procurement, the verification method intended to eliminate such situations without affecting the procedures.
ANI inspectors will carry out the verifications through specific activities, and through the Prevention System managing the information in the integrity forms registered with the SEAP for conducting public procurement awarding procedures, and processed by integrity inspectors.
A second element of novelty is that a distinct structure will be created within the ANI, in compliance with the Regulations on the Organisation and Functioning of the ANI. The structure will analyse the information included in the Prevention System and will send integrity warnings, when necessary.
Last but not least, the third element of novelty is that each contracting authority/entity is obliged to appoint, by administrative deed, one or more individuals to fill in and update the integrity forms that will be part of the tender documents for the awarding of public procurement contracts.
Transitional provisions and conclusions
Except for three articles regulating administrative organisation issues, the law is to come into force eight months after its publication in the Official Gazette of Romania.
Mircea TEIS, Senior Associate Specialising in Criminal Law with Țuca Zbârcea & Asociații
[1] Group of States against Corruption – a body of the Council of Europe established in 1999 to monitor Member States’ compliance with the anticorruption standards.
[2] Co-Operation and Verification Mechanism established by the European Union to verify on a regular basis the progress achieved by Romania and Bulgaria in judicial system reform, in the fight against corruption and organised crime.