Public procurement is of paramount importance at both national and international level. In the EU, public authorities spend 14% of GDP annually on the procurement of works, goods and services. It is therefore of the utmost importance that this area is well regulated. Member States are implementing various EU Directives in their national legal order, which also allows them to add rules to make their public procurement system as efficient as possible.
Public procurement at local government level is regulated in ZJN-3, where local self-government is also defined as the contracting authority. All too often at municipal level, breaches of the public procurement process occur, such as corruption, collusion between contracting authorities and tenderers, and the adaptation of a public contract to a specific contractor.
The aim of the master thesis was to study and present the public procurement system, in particular at local authority level. By analysing three municipalities in Slovenia and two foreign municipalities, we carried out a study which led us to a number of conclusions. Research proved that municipalities do not have a written rule on how they spend their funds, so it is not the case that a smaller municipality spends less money than a larger one. Municipalities place a strong emphasis on promoting SMEs and the local economy, with the majority of contractors chosen being local SMEs. Slovenian municipalities also highlight the impact of local elections, with the majority of funds spent on construction in an election year. However, the analysis of foreign municipalities showed in particular good practices in encouraging contracting authorities to adopt regional and SME-friendly policies, to conduct the procurement process properly, to reduce irregularities, to deal with customers with integrity and much more.
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