Road safety in Serbia: a priority or a neglected area?

Poor public procurement planning and the unresponsiveness of the Ministry of Interior to the needs of the local units of the traffic police can have a significant impact on the reduction of traffic safety. Therefore, the burden of financing shifts to local governments, which are forced to allocate funds from their budget or from other sources available to them and help traffic police on their territory by providing them with much-needed equipment. Although such a role of local governments is legally permissible, it is important to emphasize that they are not primarily responsible for such tasks.

The case of procurement of radars for the Traffic Police Department of Alibunar Police Station conducted in the spring of 2015, revealed all the problems that can occur when local governments are involved in the procurement of basic equipment of the traffic police. The tender documentation had been changed several times, which caused postponing the submission deadlines for bidders.

There was a significant difference between the estimated value of procurement and price of the accepted offer. In addition, a number of questions set by the interested parties regarded the technical specifications of procurement because of the suspicion that one manufacturer was favoured.

At the end of the analysis, the author points out that it is necessary to significantly improve the system of procurement planning at the central level of the Ministry of Interior and ensure better communication between the central and local levels of government, so that it is easier and simpler to spot the real needs of local authorities and include them in the procurement plan.

The publication is the result of work on the project “PRO-CURE Strengthening civilian control over public procurement in the security sector” funded by the European Union through the project Support to Civil Society 2013 and the Office for Cooperation with Civil Society of the Government of the Republic of Serbia.