Urgent Needs: Derogatory Procurement Law Scenarios - ippa.org ...

URGENT NEEDS – DEROGATORY PROCUREMENT LAW SCENARIOS 175a matter for national administrative law. In Norway, the procurementregulations make express references to provisions in a 1967 Statute onPublic Administration (Section 6), stating that a public decision-makermust step down in situations expressly stated as well as in any casewhere§ 6. (requirements as to impartiality)A public official shall be disqualified from preparing the basis for adecision or from making any decision in an administrative case[a-e--- Express provisions on personal relationship, corporateinvolvement etc]He is similarly disqualified if there are any other specialcircumstances which are apt to impair confidence in hisimpartiality; due regard shall inter alia be paid to whether thedecision in the case may entail any special advantage, loss orinconvenience for him personally or for anyone with whom he has aclose personal association. Due regard shall also be paid to whetherany objection to the official’s impartiality has been raised by one ofthe parties.[---].The cases listed under a)-e) are not very practical in procurementscenarios. The more relevant alternative seems to be the secondparagraph reference to “special circumstances which are apt to impairconfidence in his impartiality”.In a small country such as Norway, and even more in small andmedium district municipal social environment, it is inevitable that onehas to apply plain common sense in the balancing of personalacquaintances with principles of unbiased objectivity in the award ofurgent municipal contracts. In the “Server” incident, it turned out that amunicipal employee within the community was in fact hired to providevessels and equipment to rescue crew and property. The mediaturbulence over this silenced after some time. The question was neverraised in litigation or in a bid protest before the Complaint board.Arguably, the combination of urgency, shortage of time and the fact thatthe decision had to be taken with no apparent available alternativeswithin the time window, seems to justify the action.