On 6 August 2019, amendments to the Public Procurement Regulations (Subsidiary Legislation 174.04 of the Laws of Malta) came into force. These Regulations transpose Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement and repealing Directive 2004/2018/EC.
The amendments address two points:
First, contracting authorities no longer require the prior approval of the Department of Contracts, being the central government authority, in order to issue an open tender procedure on an accelerated basis. Recourse to the accelerated procedure, which reduces the time limit to respond to tenders to at least 15 days, must always be justified by a state of urgency which renders impracticable the standard time limits provided in the Regulations. This justification must be duly substantiated in the procurement documents.
Second, the new amendments provide further clarity on the mandatory disclosures required by contracting authorities. To date, the Regulations required contracting authorities to publish in the State-issued Government Gazette "all awards or contracts, including, variations outside the limits of the tender conditions within six months of their awards".
The amendments now specifically require contracting authorities to publish:
- all public contracts awarded;
- all contract variations exceeding 5% of the public contract value (if it were between €10,000 and €144,000); and
- all contract variations (irrespective of the %) if the public contract value is between €144,000 and €250,000.
You will find the repository of Government Gazettes here.
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