The ministry will complicate the procurement of foreign software by government agencies

by time news

“As part of the second package of measures to support the IT industry, the Ministry of Digital Development plans to introduce a requirement for approval by the department of the acquisition of foreign software by government agencies and state companies,” a representative of the Ministry of Digital Science told Vedomosti. The second package of support measures was submitted to the government in March and may soon go to the Prime Minister for signature – after the approval of the program at the level of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko.

Now, when making a purchase, any state customer must first of all look for the software products he needs in the register of domestic software. If a fully suitable software is not found in the registry, the purchasing agents write a reasoned justification for “the impossibility of observing the prohibition on the admission of software originating from foreign countries.” Justification is included in the dossier when making the purchase of the software that the customer is looking for.

Applications within the framework of the public procurement procedure are drawn up through a unified information system – it is controlled by the Ministry of Economic Development. The documents and the procurement procedure itself are checked at each stage – from planning to fulfilling contractual obligations. The main regulatory bodies are the FAS and the Federal Treasury.

As practice shows, the current control system is not enough to effectively filter out and identify illegal bids for the purchase of foreign software (that is, those cases when a Russian product can be purchased, but the customer wants to purchase a foreign one).

For example, in the spring of 2020, the Moscow Department of Information Technologies placed a purchase for 90 million rubles, indicating in the justification the specific characteristics inherent only in the Microsoft software standard. These conditions excluded the possibility of participation in the tender procedure of any alternative Russian developers, noted in a letter from the Association of Software Developers “Otechestvenny Soft” addressed to the Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev and to the office of the Mayor of Moscow.

The ministry proposes to strengthen the control system, supplementing it with one more link – the approval of the application by the relevant department. The idea is that the specialist of the Ministry of Digital Industry will more qualifiedly check the application for the purchase of foreign software, in particular the justification for the impossibility of purchasing domestic software with similar functions.

The complexity of the state approach to import substitution is to enable the market of domestic software and hardware to develop, but at the same time not to put Russian consumers of software and hardware in front of the fact of restrictions on the functionality of import-substituted products, says Andrei, Deputy General Director of Softline for work with national projects. Sholokhov.

“The ways to bypass the main act on import substitution – the government decree prohibiting the purchase of foreign software – are well studied,” says Renat Lashin, executive director of the Otechestvenny Soft Association. – In addition to “justifying the impossibility of purchasing domestic software” there is, for example, the purchase of foreign software as part of hardware and software systems, when the software is installed as a bonus and is not indicated in the procurement documentation. “

“The second package of measures to support the IT industry provides for a change in the procedure for justifying the impossibility of purchasing Russian software from just writing to agreeing on such an impossibility with an organization appointed by the regulator,” explains Ilya Massukh, head of the Import Substitution Competence Center. – Thus, this move will be eliminated. Separately, I would like to note that the use of such loopholes is fraught with state-owned companies, since when checking the Accounts Chamber, such “justifications” will be checked first of all and such purchases may be recognized as misappropriation of funds. ”

The initiative of the Ministry of Digital Industry is quite reasonable, believes Timofey Khoroshev, head of PwC’s technology consulting practice in Russia: “This will reduce the flow of invalid purchases, but there are also risks here, namely, a possible increase in the procurement approval period due to large volumes of mandatory appeals to the department.

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