The state purchase publishing portal has announced a new tender worth $26 million. The record-high sum of money will be spent on modernizing its website.
It has been renovated every year during the five years of its existence. The latest version went online only in January.
Experts have been suspicious over the amount of money offered. Even Wikipedia, one of world’s most visited websites, costs just about $1 million a year to maintain.
This comes after numerous media reports that the State Duma is preparing amendments to the law on state purchase contracts backed by President Dmitry Medvedev.
Basically, the revised law allows state companies to conceal information about state purchases. Medvedev believes this is necessary to protect the companies who win tenders from competitors who would like to make use of the details.
Thus, the state companies will be allowed to conceal information on tenders involving less than 500,000 rubles and those under state and commercial secrets. The notion of “commercial secret” is to be defined by the companies themselves.
The previous version of the law obliged companies to publish all long-term state purchases on the internet, apart from those under 100,000 rubles and those involving state secrets.
This was aimed at preventing corruption and money laundering. All companies taking part in a tender could complain to the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service if they suspected the tender was won illegally.