MIRRI Willing to Discuss Procurement of IT System with 'Let's Stop Corruption'

Bratislava, 29 October (TASR) – The Investment, Regional Development and Informatisation Ministry (MIRRI) remains willing to discuss the purchase of an IT system for the Slovensko.sk online platform with the Let's Stop Corruption Foundation and explain basic facts regarding this purchase to the foundation, the ministry's press department stated on Wednesday. The ministry made this statement in response to a criminal complaint filed by the foundation on suspicion of the crime of tender manipulation and a breach of obligations in the management of entrusted property. "MIRRI welcomes the criminal complaint because it's absurd, and, when it fails, the public will have another argument showing that the steps being taken are fully in accordance with the law and beneficial for Slovakia," said the ministry. According to the ministry, the foundation chose to ignore the facts and distort information, even though the ministry has responded to all of its questions. It added that licences from a company called Barclet have been operating on the Slovensko.sk platform since 2015, but they don't meet the required parameters in terms of capacity and functionality. The procurement aims to improve these licences, hence specific products are mentioned. The tender is being carried out via a dynamic purchasing system with around 100 registered companies providing IT solutions. According to MIRRI, the contract isn't worth €17.8 million; this figure represents only its estimated value, and the winner will be the bidder offering the lowest price. The ministry also rejected the foundation's claim that it planned to purchase the same product for €3.38 million. "This procurement concerns a truly unlimited and perpetual licence, meaning that from now on nothing will need to be resolved over time or in terms of scale as the number of platform users increases. Another key point is that the winner must provide the source code along with the right to modify it and to create new work based on it. Considering the foundation's activities, we can state that it's taking steps precisely to prevent the state from becoming independent from the existing supplier. Even if the current supplier were to win the tender, the state has full rights to have the IAM software serviced by any other provider and to implement its own future improvements independently of the licence supplier," added MIRRI. The foundation views the IT system procurement as being deliberately designed to favour one supplier – Barclet – which is both personally and commercially linked to the long-term contractor GlobalTel. It explained that one of the objectives of modernising the Slovensko.sk platform was to reduce the state's dependence on GlobalTel, but the current procurement process deepens that dependence. In addition to concerns about non-transparency and potential legal violations, it also warned of the risk of technological lock-in, whereby the state would be unable to develop the system further without the original supplier. mf/df