Abstract

The conducted analysis raises the question of the legal position of the President of the Public Procurement Office in the public procurement system and, consequently, of his impact on the development and functioning of the procurement system. The legislator decided that this is a central authority, a specialized public administration authority in matters related to procurement (Article 468 of the Public Procurement Law). The President of the Public Procurement Office is a body with a wide and varied range of tasks. Their systematics indicates that within the “scope of matters” entrusted to the President for implementation, several basic categories can be distinguished (control, organization of the functioning of public procurement, inter alia, through participation in the legislative process, education, information), which make it possible to organize the functioning and to some extent shape the system public procurement. However, the role of the PPO President is limited by the supervisory powers of the minister responsible for the economy. A clear example of the weakening of the position of the President of the Public Procurement Office as the central public administration body is the body’s lack of competence in shaping the state’s purchasing policy. Public procurement should be an instrument for achieving development policy goals, and yet the legislator does not decide to designate a specialized body to coordinate these efforts. Assessing the status of the President of the Public Procurement Office in its current form and the discussed context, the impression is that it stopped halfway. Since the Polish legislator decided to appoint a central authority competent in matters of public procurement (and yet it is not a common practice), and at the same time it was noticed that public procurement is an important instrument for the implementation of strategic goals of the country’s development, why was the President omitted from strategic planning and coordination of activities? UZP? This is not only a question, but one of the postulates that should be considered in the event of undertaking work on the amendment to the Public Procurement Law.