Anac: “Public procurement to implement a fairer, greener and more inclusive Europe"
“Using public procurement to achieve a fairer, greener and more inclusive Europe. This must be our challenge and our goal."
That’s what the President of Anac Giuseppe Busìa declared while speaking at the International Conference "New generation procurement", underway in Rome today and tomorrow 12 and 13 September 2024.
“Public procurement is a key enabler for implementing long-term public policies, shaping the fabric of our economies and societies.
This sector is crucial for the well-being of European and non European citizens and for our future development.
As a key government activity, public procurement has the power to transform lives, generate social value, and build a vision for the future” added Busia in front of an international audience of 26 countries present.
“The decisions we make today—especially in what and how we buy—will define the quality of life tomorrow and the legacy we leave for future generations. Therefore, it is imperative that we regulate, organize, and monitor public procurement with the utmost care. This vigilance not only guards against corruption and criminal infiltration but also ensures sound governance and effective administration”.
The President of the Anti-Corruption Authority insisted on how "sustainability is a strategic direction that goes beyond the requirements of legislation or economics". “Sustainability is above all a vision of the future that gives us a road map and shows governments how to best invest public money, generating value for people. Today, it is no longer enough to make cost-effective purchases in compliance with legality. Public administrations have a duty to be more ambitious: they must buy to make our societies more inclusive, to protect the planet, to increase collective well-being, to fully realise human rights. In short, they must use public procurement to build fairer countries for future generations by embedding social values into their purchases. In this sense, sustainability must become the cornerstone of the procurement system, since only socially responsible procurement can produce prosperity, that is, the multidimensional development that ensures a real improvement in the quality of life”.
“Today talking about public procurement also means dealing with democracy, the environment, human rights and new technologies. It is necessary to explore new approaches and new perspectives to make public policies truly effective, also on a social and ethical level, always placing the human being at the center of the system, as the beneficiary and protagonist£.
From this point of view – concluded Busia – the opportunities of the digital transition appear crucial in terms of transparency and simplification, compliance and efficiency. Better data and digitalisation enable new forms of collaboration with citizens and businesses to monitor procurement, improve processes and broaden democratic participation in public decision-making. In this perspective, procurement information systems should be open by design and as much as possible harmonised at the European level”
