Director of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, Mr. Sreten Radonjić, and Director of the Public Procurement Directorate, Mr. Mersad Mujević, PhD, signed a Cooperation Agreement that closely regulates mutual cooperation of the two institutions aimed at improving the system of public procurements and strengthening preventive anti-corruption initiatives.

The aim of the agreement is to develop mutual cooperation between the two institutions in order to improve the public procurement system and to achieve preventive anti-corruption activities through effective prevention of the conflicts of interest and elimination of other risks for the occurrence of corruption and violation of integrity.

In addition, the agreement envisages the joint organization of trainings, round tables and other expert meetings promoting the application of measures and anti-corruption principles in order to reduce the manifest forms of corruption in public procurement procedures, and to produce and disseminate information material in order to raise public awareness of the harmfulness of corruption and the ways of combating this phenomenon.

The agreement also envisages the exchange of information on a quarterly basis on the number of reports on the existence of the conflicts of interest and other threats to the public interest that point to corruption in the field of public procurements.

The Agency and the Directorate have committed to appoint contact persons 15 days after the signing of the Agreement, tasked to monitor the efficiency of the implementation of all forms of cooperation and to inform the parties thereof, and to propose the types, scope and modalities of the implementation of certain forms of cooperation.

This cooperation represents an important activity of the Directorate and the APC in the implementation of the commitments under the Action Plans for negotiation chapters 5 and 23, which relate primarily to the organization of trainings, systematically prepared programs for the acquisition of knowledge that future and current officers will implement to control public finances more efficiently.

The Directors of the two institutions have agreed in principle on the first activities aimed at organizing and conducting joint trainings, as well as at providing assistance in the adoption of bylaws for the implementation of the new Law on Public Procurements.