Councilors and their power to supervise public contracting carried out under a declaration of a state of exception and access to public information

Abstract

Public procurement in Ecuador in emergency situations, carried out by government and sectional entities during the Covid-19 pandemic, has remained at the center of a series of accusations of acts of corruption that have been committed by public servants and individuals. Natural or legal contractors, who maintain a direct relationship with the National Public Procurement System, generating public purchases in emergency situations with alleged over-prices, without the control bodies being able to carry out inspection actions before the award declarations of the procurement procedures public.
The object of analysis is to establish whether the recognition of the constitutional and legal norm, protects the exercise of the supervisory power of the councilors in matters of public procurement, in public purchases made by the Municipal Decentralized Autonomous Governments, GAD, in respect of the due process, for which it is intended to answer the main question of this analysis: How is the inspection process developed in the phases, stages and pre-contractual procedures of public procurement in the current legal analysis? The general objective is: to analyze the due process of public procurement procedures in Ecuador, the possibility of auditing councilors in the different phases, stages, starting from the establishment of the constitutional and legal framework, establishing normative differences. The specific objectives are: a) Determine the legal framework that protects the exercise of supervision of the councilors in obtaining information that allows the fulfillment of their attribution; b) Explain the regulatory difficulties that prevent councilors from exercising oversight in the pre-contractual phases of public procurement in Ecuador.
The methodology of this analysis is based on the technical-legal study; In the qualitative analysis from the review of primary and secondary sources that allow establishing the theoretical and legal framework for the development of due process in public procurement in Ecuador, this involves carrying out a study of the Constitutional regulations of the country of the year 2008, specifically of article 288; of the Organic Law of the National Public Procurement System in its article 57 which refers to contracting in emergency situations; and of the Organic Code of Territorial Organization, Autonomy and Decentralization, in its articles 56, 57, 58 which grants powers to councilors as a supervisory body.