For the first time since 2016, the municipality of Sevlievo will select a snow removal company using a radically different evaluation method with 20 sub-indicators, each with its own price limit and scoring system.
This appears to be an attempt to overcome the problem of manipulating a leading price, as happened in the last public procurement in 2019, which was won by a company that offered a lower price per kilometer of snow removal but a higher price for everything else. The situation was a classic example of how formally legal schemes can dramatically increase costs for taxpayers, even though at first glance they appear to be seeking the most advantageous offer.
The change this year can be seen in the procedure announced on September 8 for selecting a company to clean, sand, and treat municipal roads, streets in the city, and villages in the municipality against icing until 2028.
Award criteria
This time, too, the contract will be awarded to the most economically advantageous bid, but for the first time, the company will be selected based on an evaluation of its bid according to twenty sub-indicators, each of which carries a certain number of points. However, this time the municipality is setting maximum prices for individual activities.
For example, for snow removal per kilometer, the contracting authority (Sevlievo Municipality) specifies a maximum price of BGN 95 per kilometer (compared to the actual price of BGN 20.50/km under the previous contract), BGN 156 per kilometer for sanding (compared to BGN 99 per kilometer previously) and BGN 720 for a vehicle with a snow plow (compared to BGN 770 previously).
The score for each sub-indicator is determined by multiplying the lowest price offered by a participant by 10 and dividing the result by the unit price offered for that sub-indicator by the participant.
Costs are rising faster than inflation
Since 2016, snow removal in Sevlievo has been contracted for a three-year period. With each new three-year period, the cost increases, while the snow that falls over Sevlievo in most cases melts before the snow removal equipment is deployed. Of course, there are exceptions, such as the winter of 2024, when wet snow fell for several hours, breaking power lines and leaving roads impassable due to fallen trees and branches, but the overall impression is of increasingly warmer and milder winters.
Against this backdrop, the money allocated for snow removal in Sevlievo is increasing – by BGN 400,000 between 2019 and 2022 and by BGN 600,000 between 2022 and 2025, which is approximately 36% for each of the two three-year periods. For the winters from 2025 to 2028, the estimated price of the public procurement contract is just over BGN 2.5 million (BGN 2,520,000). There is an increase of only BGN 270,000 (the prices quoted include VAT, ed.), which is only 12% higher than the estimated cost of snow removal and de-icing of 290 km of municipal roads, streets in 28 villages with a total length of 325 km, another 50 km of streets in Sevlievo, and 10 km of main streets in the settlements.
There is no explanation for this much lower than previous increases. It is possible that the municipality has deliberately limited the forecast budget so as not to place an excessive burden on municipal finances, even though the money for snow removal is a targeted transfer from the state budget.
In 2018, the company “Winter Cleaning Sevlievo” won the public tender for snow removal in the municipality of Sevlievo and has been the incumbent in this activity ever since. Eco Tradex Group from Haskovo and InfraStroege from Sevlievo have equal shares (50:50) in the company. The two companies have been performing public procurement contracts awarded by the municipality of Sevlievo worth millions of leva for years, both jointly and separately.
