The purpose of the 5th stakeholder meeting in Latvia was to raise stakeholders’ awareness and deepen their knowledge of the monitoring and assessment procedures for GPP. Stakeholders were also consulted on the measures to gather feedback on monitoring and assessment procedures, as well as on conducting internal reviews, looking specifically at whether the planned measures and procedures have been implemented across the authority, what has been achieved, any barriers encountered, risks identified and proposed solutions.
During the workshop participants were introduced with the overall progress in GPP implementation on the national level. Representatives from the Ministry of Environment and Regional Development, Uģis Zanders and Māris Klismets, presented the latest developments in GPP, showing that 74% of all the procurements covered by the GPP regulation in 2018 where green. There is still a possibility for growth by improving control and monitoring of the GPP implementation as well as by improving the reporting of the green contracts.
Ingrīda Bremere from Baltic Environmental Forum (BEF) presented the preliminary results of the study BEF is doing on the use of GPP criteria in the procurement and control mechanisms for the implementation. Ingrida highlighted the need for stricter contract performance control in:
- controlling the fulfilment of tender commitments
- control procedures for contractors, contracting authority, experts
- punishment possibilities (volumes, quality)
BEF highlighted the problem that procurement contracts are not paying much attention to a contract performance control. It was also discussed that there are different control mechanisms depending on the procurement type - if the tender is organized by the contracting authority or centralised electronic procurement system. Usually, responsibility for the performance of the contract lays on the contractor, but it's not always clear who and how is doing contract performance control/monitoring and what kind of contractor infringement procedures could be applied.
Jānis Brizga from “SmartGreen” presented energy efficiency requirements for public procurement and the group discussed their links to GPP and available performance control mechanisms. The discussion also rose about the energy service companies and their role in providing for energy efficiency. Then the discussion moved into GPP control procedures specified in national GPP regulation and different internal public procurement instruction municipalities and institutions have.
