Prequalification selection (PQS) in the procurement of the Samruk-Kazyna group of companies has become free. Changes have been made to the Samruk-Kazyna supplier selection procedure - the time required to pass the PQD has been minimized, the transparency of the process has been increased and a significant volume of purchases has been transferred to a competitive environment. This was stated by Nurlan Mukhanov, the General Director of Samruk-Kazyna Contract LLP.

From September 14 this year on the portal zakup.sk.kz in the personal account of the PKO, access to submitting applications for passing the PKO-2.0 is open. At the same time, the procedures for the current PKO-1.0 model have been discontinued from September 15 this year, and purchases among them will be carried out until December 31, 2020.

According to N. Mukhanov, the new PKO-2.0 model has been developed taking into account the accumulated experience, as well as suggestions and comments from business and customers.

"The main reasons for the changes in the current model of prequalification were such factors as the high cost for suppliers, an extensive number of questions to suppliers in questionnaires, and the fact that the passage of the PQS procedure did not fully guarantee the quality of the purchase”,- explained Nurlan Mukhanov, the General Director of Samruk-Kazyna Contract LLP.

In particular, N. Mukhanov emphasized, the analysis of PKO 1.0. showed that with the number of suppliers who passed the qualification selection more than 4 thousand, 50% of them practically do not participate in procurement and less than 30% of suppliers were active.

The main distinguishing feature of the new PKO 2.0 model is its availability - free passage. In the previous model, PKO 1.0. to pass the PKO, potential suppliers needed to spend about 1 million tenge. This amount consisted of the tariffs of the qualifying body and the independent auditing organization, as well as the costs of additional documents. Conducting an audit in PQS 2.0. will be carried out collegially with the involvement of industry specialists of NPP Atameken, associations and subsidiaries and affiliates of the Fund.

In addition, in order to reduce the time and optimize the process of passing the PQS by potential suppliers, now the questionnaires will contain no more than ten questions aimed exclusively at the specifics of the category. In PKO 1.0, the number of questions in the questionnaire was 289.

Also, according to N. Mukhanov, PKO 2.0 will be carried out according to categories developed by customers. Categories represent a set of goods, works and services and qualification criteria for potential suppliers, which will be approved by a special commission of the Fund, and will also be coordinated with industry associations or NPP "Atameken". The approved categories, as well as qualification requirements, are posted in the public domain on the website https://www.skc.kz/ru/projects/pko/ and will expand as new categories are approved.

N. Mukhanov noted that in the new model PKO 2.0. it was decided to abandon the levels of criticality and the rating system. Previously, potential suppliers in the "pursuit" of a high rating (points) had to turn to consulting companies.

“Procurement from qualified suppliers will be focused exclusively on certain significant goods, works, services (GWS) that have industry specifics. This will allow transferring a significant part of the categories to an open competitive environment",- Nurlan Mukhanov emphasized.

At the end of the report, the head of Samruk-Kazyna Contract emphasized that the past PQS prior to the introduction of the new PQS 2.0 model will have a number of preferences, namely:

- exemption from the provision of a tender bid for purchased goods, works, services, and having a level of compliance with all qualification criteria not lower than the minimum (when participating in procurement on a general basis);

- subject to participation in procurement on a general basis and subject to equality of conditional prices of tender quotations, the winner will be the supplier who has passed PQS 1.0.

Recall that the PQS procedure was introduced into the procurement of Samruk-Kazyna JSC in 2016. The procedure involves checking the compliance of suppliers with the qualification requirements for participation in the procurement of the group of companies. It should be noted that the Samruk-Kazyna group of companies is one of the largest customers of goods, works and services in the country. In 2018-2019 alone, orders worth 819 billion tenge were transferred to the competitive environment. More than 17 thousand SMEs got access to purchases.