More than 2.5 million tenders: public procurement in Ukraine has tripled

In 2024, almost 2.5 million public procurements were held in Ukraine. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the number of procurements has tripled.

This is evidenced by the data of the monitoring service Opendatabot.

In the first 9 months of 2024, almost 2.5 million public procurements were held in Ukraine, according to Prozorro. Most of them took place through the platforms zakupivli.pro (prom.ua) and Public Procurement Online (DZO). Today, the Prozorro system unites 10 platforms for registering procurement, and two more allow only observing or participating in auctions.

The number of public procurements in Ukraine is growing every year. From 2020 to 2021, their number almost tripled - from 440 thousand to 1.2 million. In 2023, compared to the period before the war, their number tripled again to 3.6 million. So far in 2024, almost 2.5 million procurements have already been made.

In 2024, half of all tenders were held through zakupivli.pro, where more than 1.2 million procurements were made. The second place is taken by Public Procurement Online with more than 607 thousand tenders, which is 25% of the total. E-tender.biz held 14% of all tenders, which is more than 338 thousand procedures.

Where most tenders were held:

• Zakupivli.Pro - 1,218,905 (50.0%)
• Derzhzakupili.Online - 607,559 (24.9%)
• E-tender - 338 779 (13.9%)
• SmartTender.biz - 180 447 (7.4%)
• Public Bid - 38 943 (1.6%)
• Newtend - 19 786 (0.8%)
• PlayTender - 19 165 (0.8%)
• Ukrainian Universal Exchange - 13,750 (0.6%)
• Tender-online - 299 (0.0%)
• ELOT - 228 (0.0%)

Despite the increase in the number of procurements, the number of platforms for their conduct is decreasing. Since 2020, only one new platform has been added - e-lot.com.ua, while several others have been disabled: zakupkipro.com, accept-online.com.ua, privatmarket.ua and others.

The Prozorro electronic public procurement system was launched 8 years ago as a project for partnership between the state and business. During this time, the number of companies seeking to meet the needs of the state has grown significantly, and they are actively participating in competitive tenders.

Last year, about 500 private commercial companies received almost UAH 150.5 billion from the state. Analysts have revealed which companies received the most public funds and how they are connected to influential political figures. Each of these companies has so-called "red flags" in their procurement history.

The Prozorro e-procurement system was launched in Ukraine to increase competition in tenders and thus reduce budget spending. However, sometimes customers of works, services and goods prescribe conditions in the tender documentation that, on the contrary, reduce the number of potential participants, but not the cost of the procurement.

Recently, the Center for Public Investigations has investigated the top 5 discriminatory requirements that budget organizations in the South have included in tender documents over the past two months. The rating includes tenders from three regions - Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kherson.

Анна Бальчінос