A comparative analysis of two public procurement legal notices : legal notice 296/2010 and legal notice 352/2016 within the public administration of Malta

Abstract

The objective of this study is to determine the impact of effectiveness and efficiency in the tendering process following the publishing and adoption of Legal Notice 352/2016. This study focuses on the decentralisation process from the Department of Contracts to the Ministerial Procurement Units and Contracting Authorities. The Department of Contracts now assumes the role of the regulator rather than operator. The study shows that Legal Notice 352/2016 increased the level of efficiency and effectiveness particularly since this was coupled with measures taken by Department of Contracts to render the tendering process less cumbersome, efficient and effective. The findings also indicate that the new Procurement Regulations have also brought Malta in line with current EU Directives and introduced new social and economic initiatives. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the Electronic Public Procurement System is more efficient and less bureaucratic procurement process and adequately provides for stakeholders’ needs. Even though this study is carried out just a little of a year from the introduction of the Legal Notice 352/2016, the general outcome of interviews demonstrates that the new regulations essentially consolidated important procurement measures and provided for positive impact on effectiveness and efficiency in the tendering process. It shows that the new regulations assisted in the consolidation of important procurement measures to increase effectiveness, transparency and accountability. However, when it comes to MPUs, there is an overbearing recruitment problem that needs to be treated since the new PPRs has increased the work load on the Procurement Officials which is not matched with the increased head count in MPUs.