Latvia’s Competition Council (KP) has evaluated multiple complaints in regards to public procurements of electronic communications services. The institution concluded that the criteria under which clients evaluate offers are insufficient.
KP notes that in the existing mobile communication service there are multiple quality and accessibility evaluation criteria, but each one of them is flawed in some way. «With that there is no reason to pick any one quality criterion as decisive. Moreover, this is not recommended if it provides any one market player a clear advantage over competitors,» KP representatives say.
KP also explains that there could be competition neutrality violation risks if criteria such as number of base stations and their numbers in a radio frequency range, number of stores, as well as specific financial distribution criteria are given decisive weight.
KP also does not recommend including the criterion for the number of base stations or their number in a specific radio frequency range, because this criterion cannot definitely bring about the best possible service quality.
As for the criterion for the number of stores, KP is concerned about this criterion’s practical application.
«Existing practice indicates the requirement for customer service maintenance is not applied to the entire contract term, rather on the moment when the offer is submitted,
which means this criterion loses its relevance the moment a procurement contract is signed,» KP explains.
KP invites including in procurement requirements an option to provide evaluation conditions for the service basket in total, not separate units, considering that the pay for service units is no longer applied in practice. ‘This means there is no competition for such units, because all contenders equally receive the highest number of points,’ notes the Competition Council.
Additionally, KP also proposes developing electronic communications procurement guidelines and technical specifications with respect of Procurement Monitoring Bureau’s and Ministry of Transport procurement guidelines for mobile and fixed communications procurement projects.
KP notes that it is necessary to adopt a quality criteria variations for procurement purposes in order to promote competition in electronic communication service procurement projects and ensure efficient use of public funds without creating a risk of competition neutrality.
«When working in the market, a public person has increased responsibility to comply with competition neutrality in order to prevent deformation of competition,»
KP representatives explain.
KP believes actions that oppose competition neutrality principle can cause private market players to leave the market, delay innovations, limit development of existing companies and delay the entry of new businesses to the market.
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