Romanian Govt Control Dept Finds Agriculture Agency Auction Illegal

The Romanian government’s control body asked the Ministry of Agriculture and the Public Procurement Authority to sanction the guilty parties in the auction organized by the agriculture payment agency APIA to buy ATVs, where a noncompliant bid was accepted.

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Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu asked the control department in November to check the procurement procedures according to which APIA bought two lots of ATVs, following media reports saying APIA paid double the vehicles’ catalog price.

APIA explained at the time the unjustifiably large price resulted from erroneous data it sent the media. However, the agency’s anti-fraud department started an internal investigation.

Inspectors of the government’s control department also investigated the procedures followed in the auction and found the number of vehicles needed was decided at the central level of the agency, and county branches were not consulted on whether they needed such vehicles or not.

APIA’s general manager at the time, Doru Marius Nechiti, approved the procurement of vehicles worth a total RON12.2 million, of which 55 off-road vehicles, 125 ATVs and 70 ATVs with different technical features.

APIA received four bids from Radacini Motors SRL, Radacini SRL, MIT Motors International SRL and Confort Autotrading, while for the ATVs it receive only one bid, from American ATV SRL.

In the attribution documents, bidders were imposed minimum conditions regarding annual revenues for the past three years and were required to have previous experience with similar contracts.

American ATV did not meet the minimum requirements and presented documents belonging to another company, Tiriac Leasing IFN, even though the bid was not joint, the control report notes.

"In this case, members of the evaluation committee breached the provisions of a government decision, as they were obliged to reject American ATV’s offer, for noncompliance with minimum requirements," the government control department said.

According to Government decision 925/2006 on the attribution of public procurement contracts, the evaluation committee is obliged to reject offers that are unacceptable and noncompliant and do not meet minimum qualification criteria.

APIA signed a provision and maintenance contract with a American ATV for 70 Polaris Ranger 700 EFI ATVs and 125 Polaris Sportsman 500 X2 ATVs, for a total price of RON9.6 million (some EUR2.9 million).

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