Efficient and effective procurement is critical to ensuring that public administration supports the well-being of citizens. Integrity breaches in public procurement can undermine fair competition, increase costs, and compromise the quality of goods, services and works.
More broadly, public sector integrity is a key element of democratic governance., suggesting that corruption, fraud and conflict of interest in public procurement can undermine citizens’ trust in their governments. In Romania, public procurement is widely perceived as prone to corruption. According to the 2022 Eurobarometer survey on corruption, 36% of Romanian respondents thought the giving and taking of bribes and the abuse of power for personal gain was widespread among officials awarding public tenders, representing a 3% increase since 2019.
Over the past two decades, Romania has undertaken extensive efforts to address structural challenges in its public procurement system. Since 2001, six National Anticorruption Strategies (NAS) have been implemented, aiming to reduce corruption and enable effective, inclusive public service delivery. Romania’s National Public Procurement Strategy 2023-2027 also sets out specific initiatives linked to risk management and integrity.
Despite these extensive reforms, this report identifies steps that Romania could take to address public procurement challenges through a risk management approach. These include:
Fostering a culture of integrity by developing targeted integrity training programmes and expanding partnerships with the private sector and civil society. A strong culture of integrity can support the management of corruption and fraud risks. In interviews and surveys conducted for this project, stakeholders repeatedly raised the lack of a strong culture of integrity as a key factor impacting the Romanian public procurement system.
Improving stakeholder co-ordination by strengthening the role of Inter-ministerial Committee for Public Procurement to ensure a unified approach to risk management, overcoming current fragmented practices. The Romanian public procurement system suffers from a lack of coordination with respect to risk management. Institutions propose and implement measures in their own areas of responsibility but there is no consistent and coherent approach.
Building public procurement workforce capacity by collaborating with knowledge centres, making public procurement careers more attractive, and continuing to invest in central purchasing bodies to ensure staff have adequate skills, particularly in risk management.
Restricting legislative initiatives that duplicate or conflict with existing procurement laws and establish clearer responsibilities for maintaining and updating the public procurement legal framework. A fragmented or unstable legal framework can make risk management more challenging by creating uncertainty. In Romania, frequent changes to public procurement legislation create uncertainty and require additional time and effort on the part of contracting authority staff to stay up to date.
Increasing competition by improving contracting authorities’ capacity to engage the market and by providing training for private sector participants, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises. While low levels of competition are a challenge across Europe, data shows significant use of negotiated procedures without publication in Romania, while the rate of single bid contracts is also high. Along with undermining value for money, low levels of competition can be a risk factor for corruption and fraud.
Strengthening the effectiveness of the public procurement control system by enhancing co-ordination among control bodies and continuing efforts to shift the focus of control activities from compliance to value for money. To ensure that oversight and control mechanisms support accountability, controls and audits should be coordinated, sufficiently resourced and integrated.
Addressing the concerns of public procurement practitioners with regards to liability and what constitutes error, fraud and negligence by developing clear guidance and training. As public procurement is a high-risk area, a lack of clarity and proportionality can lead to inertia and a reluctance to explore new approaches due to fear that control, audit and law enforcement bodies will not distinguish among honest errors of judgement, negligence and fraud.
Romanian has developed various anti-corruption frameworks, processes and measures at different points in the procurement process, as well as general support for public procurement risk management. Some of these processes and measures are directly aimed at public procurement, while others relate to integrity or operational risks more generally. Some of the key frameworks are Government Decision no.599/2018, which requires the development of a corruption risks registry and an integrity incident registry, and the standards on internal managerial control, which require public entities to establish internal control mechanisms. Specific tools include an ex ante verification mechanism for conflict of interest, extensive guidance for practitioners, and good practices implemented by individual contracting authorities.
While Romania has made significant strides in establishing these risk management frameworks and addressing risks related to corruption and fraud, the implementation of risk management in public procurement is often inconsistent. Where contracting authorities do address risks, their approaches are often fragmented and reactive and do not consider risk during the entire procurement process.
While specific efforts could be made, such as promoting existing guides and methodological support and providing opportunities for learning and exchange between contracting authorities, the challenge is not primarily a lack of tools or guidance, but rather how they are put into practice. Romania would benefit from harmonising public procurement risk management efforts and ensuring that general frameworks are applied consistently in public procurement.
