Most Common Mistakes in Procurements

1. Cases of non-examination of documents and tenders submitted:

1.1. The application to participate in the procurement/procurement procedure is signed by a person who is not indicated in the certificate of the Register of Enterprises as having the right to represent the tenderer and no power of attorney or other document confirming the right of the person signing the application to represent the tenderer is submitted with the tender;

1.2. The tender security has not been submitted or its term and/or amount does not comply with the requirements;

1.3. The submission of a tender after the deadline. Even if it is only a few minutes late, the tender will be returned unopened by the Tender Committee after the deadline for submission;

1.4. The tenderer does not press all the buttons in the Electronic Procurement System (thereafter - EPS) to submit a tender. The tenderer considers that the tender has already been submitted to the system when the tenderer reaches the status 'Signed'. But after the status 'Signed', the appropriate steps must still be taken to change the status of the tender to 'Submitted'. The tenderer must open the 'Submission' section of the signed tender and click on the 'Submit tender' button at the bottom of the form.

2. Qualifications of tenderers and documents supplied:

2.1. The documents submitted by the tenderer show that the annual net turnover of the company does not comply with the requirements of the tender specifications;

2.2. The copies of the required certificates and/or licences for the right to supply the goods or services in question or documents attesting to the quality characteristics of the goods in question have not been provided;

2.3. The staff member's qualification document has expired (e.g. certificate of practice as an architect, etc.);

2.4. Does not have the necessary experience in the implementation of orders of a similar size or function

2.5. No references have been submitted in accordance with the requirements of the tender specifications;

2.6. The Certificate of Experience has not been submitted or has been submitted incompletely/ partially completed;

2.7. Failure to submit all the required documents concerning the contractor to be engaged in accordance with the requirements of the tender;

2.8. The submitted estimates have not been prepared in accordance with the Cabinet of Ministers Regulation of 3 May 2017 No 239 "Regulations on Latvian Building Code LBN 501-17 "Procedure for Determination of Construction Costs"";

2.9. In cases when a tax debt is established for a merchant, unverifiable statements on the tax payment status, e.g. without a QR code or with an unreadable (invalid) QR code, are submitted as proof of the absence of the debt within the time limit specified by the Commission. Or other documents are submitted, such as payment orders for transfers made to the Treasury, which are not required by law as evidence;

2.10. Foreign traders submit a self-certification as proof of exclusion, without complying with the legal requirement that such a self-certification must be made to a competent executive or judicial authority, a sworn notary or a competent organisation in the relevant sector in the country of their establishment (certification of the tenderer by one of these competent authorities).

3. Documentation of technical and financial tenders:

3.1. The time limits for delivery of the goods/service, the time limits for rectification of defects, the guarantee periods do not comply with the requirements or are not stated at all;

3.2. The description of the goods or services offered does not meet the requirements of the technical specification (e.g. the tenderer has copied the technical specification when writing its technical tender, resulting in the words 'or equivalent', dimensional tolerances, etc. being left out in some places, making it impossible to identify the goods/services offered by the trader);

3.3. Where requested, failure to submit an extended/detailed financial offer;

3.4. Arbitrarily makes changes to the structure of the forms published by the EIS e-tender Contracting Authority, including deleting or adding rows or columns, so that the financial offer is not completed in accordance with the requirements of the Regulations, which renders the offers incomparable and non-evaluable, and the offer is therefore not submitted for the full scope of the procurement;

3.5. The financial/technical tender has not been completed in accordance with the requirements of the tender specifications;

3.6. Failure to submit technical descriptions issued by the manufacturers of the goods offered, where the Commission has requested them in the Statutes, in order to enable it to establish that the tender complies with the technical specification, or carelessness in the preparation of the tender by failing to reflect the conformity of the requirements of its technical tender with the technical specification;

3.7. When verifying that an unreasonably low tender has not been submitted, the tenderer fails to provide, or provides insufficient evidence of, the pricing mechanism for the good/service.

4. Procedure:

4.1. Not exercise its right to submit questions to the Procurement Committee during the procurement procedure;

4.2. Fail to ask questions on the subject-matter of the procurement in a timely manner, i.e. ask questions in disregard of the statutory requirement that the Tender Committee reply within 5 working days, but not later than 6 days before the closing date for submission of tenders, so that the Committee cannot prepare a substantive response and inform all interested suppliers thereof. Timely questions would be those submitted at least 9 days before the deadline for submission of tenders;

4.3. In some cases, if a condition set out in the procurement documents is not understood, tenderers do not ask the Tender Committee, but simply disregard the unclear condition, with the result that the tender submitted by the tenderer does not comply with the requirements set out in the procurement documents;

4.4. Fails to respond to clarifying questions from the Tender Committee within the time limit set;

4.5. Requests, without objective and verifiable justification, an extension of the time limit for the submission of tenders or replies which is disproportionately long, thereby delaying the completion of the procurement procedure.

Compliance with public procurement procedures ensures equal rights and opportunities for all tenderers - the members of the Tender Committee are personally responsible for ensuring that all the requirements laid down in the laws and regulations are complied with consistently, and are not entitled to interpret the law, even if it concerns something as small as a single signature, a certified copy or missing a deadline for submitting a tender by five minutes.

If the Procurement Committee finds one of the situations listed above, it will assess all the circumstances and decide on a course of action, taking into account the requirements of the sector-specific regulatory enactments and the specific procurement rules, either by updating the necessary information, if possible, or by excluding the candidate/applicant from participation in the procurement, as appropriate.