The establishment of the national procurement agency in Ukraine is a lengthy process and can take up to five years, UNDP Country Director in Ukraine Janthomas Hiemstra has stated. “A very good work has been done so far supported by many knowledgeable and international support agencies. And the trouble with establishing a brand new agency is that, I mean anywhere in the world, this takes something between two and five years because … [there are] so many complications. So that is a long-term process. And I don’t think this can be done any faster in Ukraine,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to the expert, UNDP together with the Ministry of Health started working on the creation of the national procurement agency in 2017.
At the same time, he noted UNDP and the Ministry of Health discussed the situation that the national procurement agency won’t be created, because, according to the legislation, 2018 is the last year when international organizations purchase drugs, but he did not specify the results of this discussion. “The particularly tricky thing with establishing this agency is that it will need to be a Ukrainian agency … [and] the systems, the organization and the people … need to be very strong against corruption,” he added.
