Transport Minister Rimantas Sinkevičius says he will look into public procurement contracts of Lietuvos Geležinkeliai (Lithuanian Railways) after inspectors found irregularities in how one of Lithuania’s biggest state-owned companies select contractors.
“I will check with the board whether it is indeed a widespread phenomenon. If public procurement procedures are violated each time, … we will draw appropriate conclusions,” Sinkevičius told reporters.
The Public Procurement Service (VPT), a watchdog agency, has recently inspected Lithuanian Railways and ruled the company will have to annul the results of a €2.9 million tender for engine oil.
The company “artificially limited competition” and discriminated against bidders, the VPT ruled. The terms of the tender also disregarded recommendations to split big-value contracts into smaller ones so that more providers could compete.
This year, the agency has inspected five public procurement contracts signed by Lithuanian Railways and found irregularities in all of them.
Lithuanian Railways representatives say that the company signs some 3,000 public procurement contracts each year and only a small fraction of them contain irregularities.
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