Treasury of the Republic of Cyprus

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Both the public and wider public sectors, which spend through Public Procurement over €500m on an annual basis, have an obligation to invest in the professionalism and in the building of skills and competencies so as to be able to carry out their purchases in a strategic, effective and efficient manner, by utilizing the taxpayers’ funds in such a way as to ensure the maximization of the return obtained and value added.

For this reason, the Treasury of the Republic of Cyprus, in its capacity as the Competent Authority for Public Procurement, has prepared a new comprehensive strategy for carrying out public procurement in a more professional and modernized context, which has been approved by the Council of Ministers (Decision no. 86.929, dd. 28/2/2019) and is currently being implemented.


The role of the Professional Purchasing Officer which entails academic certification and adequate practical experience has been introduced. This Officer will have a thorough knowledge of the regulatory framework and all associated tools. He/she will further have a proper understanding of the market to which he/she will be referring for making his/her purchases, and he/she will be able to attain the end-result, that is the maximum return obtained in the purchases of the wider public sector.


At the same time, a Central Purchasing Unit which will be formed within the Treasury of the Republic of Cyprus, will be operating as a Service Centre with the purpose of managing and guiding the professional Purchasing Officers. It will be conducting tender processes on behalf of other buyers that do not have, due to a small demand volume, neither the ability nor the need to build the relevant expertise in the associated procedures, and it will be furnishing the major projects’ purchasing teams, from the outset, with competent professional officers. Additionally, it will extend the operation of the Framework Agreements and also implement an electronic market so as for the byers of the public and wider public sectors to be able to meet their common needs through the simple submission of an order.


The end goal is for the Public Procurement sector to adopt a holistic approach that would result in the procedures being carried out by professionals, while also ensuring that the small-scale buyers, which today form the vast majority, will be satisfying their needs without being required to build expertise and to be conducting tender processes.