THE "MORALITY" OF PRACTICES IN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT

In the sector of public procurement, we can observe many typical attitudes of a living society. The most interesting part of tendering procedures is the award of a contract. The choice of a contractor is sometimes a matter of "pure" competition, but it happens to be also a result of a less transparent procedure. Such rewards are difficult to discover and certainly the main purpose for avoiding the foreseen procedure is profit making. However, the existence of these practices in a sector (public procurement) which constitutes 14% of global GPA should not only be examined as an illegal attitude, but also as a dangerous one, because the award of contracts in sensitive areas such as health, security or education is required to receive the highest protection. Having the phenomenon of corruption described above as a basis, this paper attempts to reach the source of the problem. Which reasons could urge a contracting authority to decide and award a contract to a person or a company which does not fulfil all the requirements? Is this only a problem of human greed or is it something even bigger? Comparing several societies, this phenomenon is found more or less to all of them. Unfortunately, we do not observe only a disfunctioning in public procurement, but also a global degrading community with lack of values and expectance nothing better than fraud in the most aspects of social life. A change in our biotheory is inevitable and a good beginning could be the education and not the void one, but a vivid and experiential type of education. If well trained people worked at the public services, then the choice of deviation in public procurement could possibly be limited. Finally, education and principal social structures are the "keys" to change the shadowy practices in public procurement.