1.8.1 Defining roles and responsibilities in the

procurement process

The following table indicates the ideal structure of a big Contracting Authority (which is usually an Implementing Agency too) and the main responsibilities of its cooperating services with due regard to procurement.

Table 1-4: Ideal structure of a big Contracting Authority

This structure is ideal and not applicable to all Cypriot Contracting Authorities. This is due to the fact that the majority of them do not deal with big procurement volumes and thus no separate procurement unit prove to be necessary. However, there are departments of the central government such as the Public Works Department and the Department of Information Technology Services, as well as organisations governed by the public law such as the Electricity Authority of Cyprus, which posses specialised procurement units and staff with adequate procurement skills.

As a general rule, the necessity of a separate procurement unit in a Contracting Authority depends primarily on its mission and objectives and secondarily on the procurement volume that undertakes.

Apart from the roles and responsibilities described in the above table, there is also a number of other competent organs which participate in the procurement process and which are responsible for the proposals’ evaluation or/and the contract award decision. The names, roles and responsibilities of these organs vary depending on the type of the Contracting Authority as it is shown in the following table (Table 1-5).

Table 1-5: Roles and responsibilities for proposals’ evaluation and contract award decision in various types of Contracting Authorities

Basic rules to conduct for people involved in the public procurement process

The complexity of rules and procedures, as well as the vulnerability of public entities, has made it a good practice to reserve functions in procurement and finance transactions for duly authorised officials or employees. These employees are responsible to protect the Contracting Authority against claims and losses that may otherwise occur. 

Public procurement requires guarantees for impartiality and accountability. It also requires strict confidentiality about the contents of tenders and other procurement actions as well as any other additional information required from the tenderer. The disclosure of confidential information would impede on the tenderers’ interest to protect their intellectual property rights and their commercial secrets. The procurement officer must be consistent in his administrative behaviour and respect the high standards and expectations that members of the public have towards his performance. If this is not guaranteed, severe problems may occur.

To limit the probability for conflict of interest and potential corruption in the context of public procurement, authorities, responsibilities and subordination lines have to be established in a specific way. Wherever possible procurement experts should be independent from the “technical” project management teams and should report usually to the Finance Department. Procurement staff, on its part, has no authority to revise budgets or approve delivery which is at the Project Management Team’s discretion. Changing financial records such as allocations, commitments and expenditures is again separated – it should be the privilege of accountants in the finance department (of course based on requests from the Project Management team or those in charge of procurement).

Note: Extended analysis on ethical and behavioural issues for people involved in public procurement process can be found in the “Code of Ethics Manual”.