S.L. 601.5 Art. 35Duties of a contracting authority.

It shall be the duty of all contracting authorities:

(a) to observe and abide by these regulations;

(b) to administer their own procurement when the estimated values of such a procurement falls under the threshold established in regulation 30(1)(a);

(c) to draw up procurement documents and all relevant supporting documentation: Provided that when a contracting authority needs to publish a procurement process with an estimated value which falls under the threshold established under regulation 30(1)(b), the same contracting authority shall forward the procurement document and all relevant supporting documentation to the Director so that they may be vetted, published and administered by the latter;

(d) to ensure that any references to nomenclatures in the context of public procurement shall be made using the Common Procurement Vocabulary;

(e) to publish all calls for tenders and quotations, through Government’s e-procurement platform, unless otherwise authorised in writing by the Director;

(f) to monitor the implementation of the procurement process;

(g) to take appropriate measures to effectively prevent, identify and remedy conflicts of interest arising in the conduct of procurement procedures so as to avoid any distortion of competition and to ensure equal treatment of all economic operators;

(h) to indicate in its procurement documents that the award of the contract is subject to the review procedure as set forth in these regulations and to include an extract of the relevant part of the appeals process in the said documents for the guidance of economic operators;

(i) to administer and implement all contracts signed by them or on their behalf and to defend in front of any court or tribunal any issue that might arise in the execution of the contract;

(j) to effect all payments resulting from the execution of the contract;

(k) to take appropriate measures to ensure that, during the execution of a contract, economic operators comply with the applicable obligations in the fields of environmental, social and labour law established by Union law, national law, collective agreements or by the international environmental, social and labour law provisions listed in Schedule 14: Provided that the Contracting authority or contracting entity as the case maybe may decide not to award a contract to the tenderer submitting the best tender where they have established that the tender does not comply with the applicable obligations referred to in this paragraph.

(l) to notify the Commission, if so requested by the latter, the following information regarding the application of regulation 31(1) and (6) and regulation 32:

(i) the names of the undertakings or joint ventures concerned;

(ii) the nature and value of the contracts involved;

(iii) proof deemed necessary by the Commission that the relationship between the undertaking or joint venture to which the contracts are awarded and the contracting entity complies with the requirements of regulation 31 or 32.