New Procurement Law favors SMEs and toughens consequences regime

Santo Domingo.- The new Law 47-25 gives a “historic” boost to MSMEs and women-owned MSMEs, by increasing the government’s procurement budget reserve from 20% to 30%, and toughens the consequences regime to prevent and punish corruption in public procurement. President Luis Abinader signed this Wednesday the implementing regulations of the law in an act held at the National Palace, informed the Government Press Office.

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The law establishes new hiring modalities and the mandatory use of the Electronic Public Procurement System (SECP), as well as the integration of environmental and sustainability criteria in the processes, among other novelties. Abinader said that the regulation marks the beginning of a new cycle of transformation towards a more transparent, efficient, and responsible public administration in front of the citizenry. The president assured that the new system reinforces planning, improves competition, strengthens controls, and promotes a culture of prevention, in line with the commitment made at the beginning of his administration to strengthen institutions, protect public resources, and close the spaces where abuse, improvisation, and lack of controls have historically occurred. “This reform does not seek to hinder public management. It seeks to strengthen it. It does not seek to paralyze the State. It seeks to make it more efficient, more predictable, and more reliable,” Abinader emphasized. In his speech, the head of state highlighted that this reform aligns the Dominican Republic with international standards of good governance, competitiveness, and institutional trust, ensuring that the rules remain beyond any government. For his part, the general director of Public Procurement, Carlos Pimentel, valued the “decisive” support of the president for the approval of the reform and assured that, under Abinader’s leadership, transparency has ceased to be a discourse to become a public policy with concrete results. He said that the presence of the Attorney General’s Office, the Anti-Fraud Unit, and the State’s control bodies is proof that “the new law will not walk alone: it will walk accompanied by institutions committed to legality and accountability.” He assured ministers and heads of institutions that the reform is designed to strengthen their work, provide greater legal security, and raise the standards of public management, while guaranteeing citizens that each hiring responds to the general interest and not to particular interests. The head of the DGCP explained that the implementation of the new law will be carried out gradually, in an orderly and responsible manner, according to the approved schedule, guaranteeing the correct institutional adaptation and the strengthening of technical capacities.