The government should introduce new measures to monitor spending and to eliminate inefficiencies caused by conflict-of-interest, duplication of services, and other sources.
- The government should issue an annual report assessing the efficiency of its infrastructure spending against the EU average.
- The government should increase investment in eGovernment initiatives that will streamline permit processes and improve public assess to government operations and decisionmaking.
- A government efficiency commission composed of all elected parties should be established in parliament and each member of the commission given the right to order an independent audit of any government procurement. Meetings and all records of this commission should be public.
- Conflict-of-interest laws should be expanded and better enforced. Independent investigations of any public official or government advisor could be initiated based on public petitions signed by 5000 Czech citizens.
- The effectiveness of EU structural funding could be monitored in each region by comparing how many jobs and how much revenue was created per euro granted.
- The government should set criteria for appointments to key policymaking positions to ensure that the individuals making major economic decisions have the best qualifications available.
In February 2011, the Ministry for Regional Development released a draft amendment to the Public Procurement Act and invited public to comment. The Government announced in April that reading of the bill in the Chamber of Deputies in June wouldl be connected with the vote of confidence. The primary aim of the amendment is to reduce corruption risks in public procurement. Newly introduced key principles and measures aim at greater transparency of the tendering process, extended scope of procurements that have to be processed according to the Public Procurement Act (from 2014, the Act will apply to all procurements over Kc1,000,000), greater efficiency of the tendering process (obligation to provide analysis and economic reasons for the selection of the winning bid, presence of experts in evaluation committees, an official list of experts, measures to avoid bid-rigging, greater oversight of the decision-making processes, the so-called major procurements (over Kc300 mil at the Government level and Kc20-200 mil at the municipal level) to be approved by the Government/municipal council).
The Chamber of Deputies approved the bill in early November. The Senate, the Upper Chamber of the Czech Parliament, returned the draft Amendment to the Public Procurement Act to the Chamber of Deputies and submitted three changing proposals. On January 31, the Chamber of Deputies rejected the Senate’s changing proposals related to ownership transparency and passed the reform version approved earlier in November 2011. Among the most significant improvements are the obligation to disclose contracts, real costs/final prices, and all documents and information related to the tendering process (excl. given exemptions), for example. The tendering agency will be obliged to justify each procurement and the scope of procurements that have to be processed according to the Public Procurement Act will be extended. The amendment also introduces rules related to ownership structure of tender winners and subcontractors. The issue of ownership transparency should be dealt with in a separate act (Act on Transparency of Corporations), currently being drafted by the Ministry of Justice.