IDFI’s report says the government of Georgia spent GEL200 million on procurement of hotel and hospital services

By Khatia Bzhalava

Thursday, December 10

“Between March 21 and November 15, the Georgian National Tourism Administration spent over GEL78 million on the procurement of the goods and services required for the implementation of mandatory quarantine,” read the report.

Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) has released a report on the coronavirus related state procurements. The report presents the statistical data, the systemic problems, and suspicious procurements between the March 21th and November 15th period.

According to IDFI, the government spent GEL200 million on the procurement of hotel and hospital services, between March 21 and November 15. Georgian National Tourism Administration spent over GEL78 million on procurement of goods and services required for the implementation of mandatory quarantine. Based on the Government of Georgia’s decree of 6 November, an additional GEL35 million financial resources were allocated to Georgian National Tourism Administration, which in addition to the amount already spent exceeds GEL100 million. The additional funds are dedicated to mobilizing the COVID hotels and facilitating the procurement of services related to this process.

The report shows that between July and November, for a purpose of mobilizing additional beds at the hospitals, the Social Service Agency requested an agreement for receiving GEL98.5 million from the State Procurement Agency. Social Service Agency allocated a sum of GEL625,537 to support medical personnel in quarantine/field conditions. There was also GEL300,000 allocated during November alone with the same purposes.

According to IDFI, unlike the examples from neighboring countries, in Georgia, COVID-related procurements are not separately listed in the electronic procurement system, thus, are not properly analyzed. The report reads that The Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs do not publish simplified procurement agreements to the electronic system, including procurements related to COVID-19.

“The analyzed data has shown that the largest share of the funds is spent on COVID hotels and mobilization of hospitals. The procurement of some of the services related to Covid-19 have returned to the format of electronic tenders, which should be welcome, although the number of such cases is not high,” reads the report. IDFI believes that the key challenge for the monitoring of procurements is the lack of data availability in an open and processable format. The study has revealed that data on COVID-related procurements are either scattered across the system and are difficult to identify and collect, or are not uploaded to the system at all.

IDFI recommends The State Procurement Agency to guarantee the publication of the information in the electronic system in an open and processable format. IDFI recommends the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs to ensure publication of simplified procurement agreements per law.

According to IDFI, the data was collected from the SPM (simplified procurement agreements with the agency) module and the electronic tender module of the State Procurement Agency.