How Senate turned contract register to flop: Find five differences
Read what the Senate wrought to the bill on contract register. Learn how the Upper Chamber-proposed version differs and why it won’t work. Adopting laws that are only labelled as anti-corruption simply won’t do.
Having debated the bill for more than two years, the Chamber of Deputies has arrived at a fragile coalition agreement and corrected the visible flaws. Still, Senators came forth with several “improvements”:
| Senate version | House version |
| Official discloses what he deems fit. This has no prejudice for the applicability of contracts. | Whatever official does not disclose will simply not apply. Contract must be disclosed within 3 months after being concluded. |
| Need to check approx. 1.5 million contracts a year, filed by approx. 8,000 parties. | Nothing to check. If it isn’t on the internet, it’s not valid. |
| Already overburdened ÚOHS would additionally have to perform approx. 2,000 deep audits a year at offices, schools, school libraries, pensioners’ homes and other institutions. Time needed for one check amounts to 3-6 days. Dozens of new employees might need to be hired to ensure proper oversight. |
Approx. 200 ÚOHS employees can fully devote themselves to checking the disclosure of contracts on public procurement orders—a full-time job already. ¼ of contracts cannot be tracked, ¾ lack contractors, and ½ lack price statement. |
| ÚOHS will mete out fines amounting to 25% of the price stated in the contract. In most cases, the State will impose fines on itself. Erring official might be fined to the amount of 4.5 times his/her pay. Second contracting party cannot be fined. | ÚOHS will continue fining for the non-disclosure of contracts on public procurement orders up to CZK 10 million. |
| Jaroslav Hanák, President of the Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic, on ÚHOS: “People have cropped up but no improvement is in sight,” he said at the start of an engineering fair. | Josef Baxa, President of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic: “The contract undisclosed is a contract void principle is the only truly efficient defence against attempts to circumvent transparency of contracting in public institutions.” |
Read a detailed position (in Czech) on: https://pimcore.rekonstrukcestatu.cz/na-stazeni/stanovisko-rekonstrukce-statu-k-registru-smluv.pdf.