Press Release, 24.04.2020

Yabloko party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov sent an appeal to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin calling for measures to increase the accessibility of the market for state and municipal procurement for small and medium-sized businesses.

“The Yabloko party believes that the state should improve the conditions for small and medium-sized businesses and become their “best client”, reducing costs for fulfilling contracts and paying for work on time,” Nikolai Rybakov emphasised in his address.

The party believes that the state needs to encourage bona fide suppliers and restrict unscrupulous customers. The latter, according to the head of Yabloko, under the conditions of a high-readiness regime introduced in mid-March, received additional opportunities for abuse in the formation of lots and non-competitive purchases.

Yabloko recommends the following measures to create better conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises in the implementation of state contracts:

– oblige customers to include in the contracts concluded on the basis of procurement from small and medium sized businesses a condition of advance payment of at least 50% of the contract;

– introduce a prerequisite for phased execution and payment of contracts, the term of implementation should not exceed 30 days;

– reduce the term for payment by the customer of the delivered goods or work performed, or services rendered to ten days from the date of signing the acceptance document (now, according to the legislation, such a period can vary from 15 to 30 days);

– introduce suppliers’ bona fide index, which should be take into account for participation in state and municipal procurements, include unscrupulous suppliers in a special register for a period of two years or introduce a fine as an alternative measure of liability;

– gradually increase the volume of public procurement from small and medium-sized businesses from 18% to 50%.

Among other measures, the party also calls for prior approval of the consolidated lots and purchases from a single supplier with the antimonopoly regulator, cancel the “special conditions” of purchases for the Ministry of Defence and purchases from a single supplier for holding voting on constitutional amendments and introduce equal liability for late payments for public procurement .

The Chairman of Yabloko believes that these measures can support small and medium-sized businesses in the context of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis, and will also help revive the competitive environment in Russia.

It should be noted that the Yabloko party has developed a programme of socio-economic and political measures to overcome the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The programme consists of four blocks: support for the health care system, support for citizens, support for small and medium-sized businesses, as well as a number of political measures, such as, for example, abolishing of the all-Russia vote on Vladimir Putin’s constitutional amendments. At the end of March, the document was was sent to the President, the Government and the parliament.