Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 27th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview WG5: Public Finance and Public Financial Management Author(s) Juraj Nemec Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic Orviská Marta, Grega Matus, Title Pros and Cons of the e-Procurement Market in Slovakia File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Juraj Nemec Abstract The efficiency of public procurement (not only) in Slovakia is determined by several factors, the quality and efficiency of the functioning of the e-procurement market is for sure on of them. Two issues will be investigated: A: E-market and competitiveness Public procurement through the electronic marketplace in average (since the introduction of the EKS in late 2014 until October 1, 2017) had 3,54 bidders per procurement and therefore also the EKS system has quite big room to improve competitiveness. We also analyzed the impact of e-auction use in public procurement with one and with more bidders. Based data from public procurement in Slovakia between years 2009 and 2014, we have shown that, if only one bidder was involved in the tendering procedure, the electronic auction adversely affected the amount of savings achieved (compared to public procurement without the use of e-auctions the final price savings were negative – final price increased by 3,29 % in average). If there were two or more bidders, e-auction has had a positive impact on the savings achieved compare with public procurement where the e-auction was not used. Between years 2009 and 2014, more than 40 % of public procurements in Slovakia had only one bidder and according to data from electronic marketplace since the introduction of EKS during late 2014 until October 1, 2017, there were more than 20% of public procurements in an electronic marketplace with only one bidder. B: E-market and savings According to data from of the electronic marketplace (EKS) since its introduction (late 2014) until October 1, 2017, there are some nice savings achieved (in total more than 170 million of euro, this is roughly about 17.9% of the total estimated value of the contracts). We do not agree with the presented savings because of many factors, which were not taken under consideration, when these savings were calculated. Despite many negatives, we believe that the final adjusted savings achieved by EKS should be positive and EKS positively contributed to higher efficiency of public procurement in Slovakia. According to the most of contracting authorities, the introduction of EKS helped to speed up the purchasing process of goods, services and works and probably also helped to reduce transaction costs. However, the volume of trades through EKS reaches less than 5% of the total public procurement in Slovakia annually, so even if the EKS increased the efficiency of public procurement in Slovakia, its impact on the overall efficiency of public procurement is negligible.
