Settlement of expenditure – things to remember
On March 18th, the 2nd Meeting of the National Controllers of the Programme, organized by the Joint Secretariat, took place. During this meeting, representatives of the National Controllers from Poland and Ukraine, the Managing Authority, and the Joint Secretariat exchanged experiences related to the verification of payment claims.
Please find below some of the topics discussed at the meeting that we would like you to pay attention to:
Obligation to apply the principle of competitiveness (applies to Polish Beneficiaries)
We would like to remind you that Polish Beneficiaries:
- who are not subjectively or objectively obliged to apply the Public Procurement Law (PPL) Act, including sectoral entities within the meaning of the Act, are required to award contracts in accordance with the principle of competitiveness and to publish notices in the Competitiveness Database (BK2021), as indicated in Chapter 9 of the Programme Manual. This principle applies to the aforementioned entities for contracts with a value equal to or greater than PLN 80,000 net;
- who are required to apply the PPL Act, shall apply the principle of competitiveness only to contracts with a value between PLN 80,000 and PLN 170,000 net.
Failure to publish a contract in the Competitiveness Database or awarding a contract in violation of the competition principle will result in a financial correction.
Check for a conflict of interest
During the conflict of interest check, the Controller determines the data of the individuals and entities being examined to the extent necessary to uniquely identify them. This means that the Controller has the right to obtain the data of the examined Beneficiary’s representatives, i.e., their name and surname, and their identification number (PESEL or NIP in the case of Polish Beneficiaries). The Beneficiary is obligated to provide this data under the grant contract.
Ex-ante assessment
At the Beneficiary’s request, the Controller may carry out an ex-ante assessment of a public procurement procedure to be conducted under the Programme requirements (Public Procurement Law in Poland / Annex II to Financial Agreement in Ukraine)
For this purpose, the Beneficiary, via the Correspondence module in CST2021, submits a formal request to the Controller along with the procurement documentation, including:
in case of Polish Beneficiaries
- a draft contract notice,
- a draft Terms of Reference / Technical Specifications,
- a draft contract.
in case of Ukrainian Beneficiaries
- a draft notice of initiation of the procedure, a draft notice of contract award, and a draft notice of contract amendments (draft announcement on Prozorro),
- a draft invitation to participate in the procurement procedure,
- a draft tender specifications, including technical specifications and relevant criteria,
- a draft contract based on the standard contract template (point 14.1, section C, Annex II to the Financing Agreement).
However, the above list of documents is not exhaustive and depends on the type of procurement procedure, therefore other documents can also be required, namely:
- a draft protocol on the selection of the procurement procedure by the contracting authority in accordance with the requirements of Annex II to the Financing Agreement and approval of procurement documentation (Open procedure, Restricted procedure, Local open procedure, Simplified procedure, Single tender),
- an order on the establishment of the evaluation committee (if the expected procurement value does not exceed EUR 20,000),
- letters of request, market research, and/or other documents on the basis of which the expected value was determined by the contracting authority,
- draft invitation letters to participate in the procurement procedure in a minimum number of three (Simplified procedure).
The ex-ante assessment of documents for a given procurement procedure may be carried out only once. The Controller should complete this assessment within 21 working days, therefore it is recommended to submit draft documents for review well in advance.
The ex-ante assessment has an advisory purpose only and can help prevent the consequences of law violations. However, the Controller is not responsible for the conduct of the procedure. Ex-ante assessment does not exempt the Beneficiary from ex-post control nor does it preclude the possibility of identifying irregularities during the verification of incurred expenditure.
Flat rates calculators
New versions of the flat rate costs calculators for Large Infrastructure Projects and regular projects are available on our website in the For project partners section. Unlike previous versions, they do not contain macros, making them more user-friendly.
Attaching documents in CST2021
We kindly remind you to always share source documents with the Controller by attaching them to the relevant payment claim in CST2021 system. This also applies to documents submitted during audit activities via the Correspondence module.