Public Finance, Budgeting and Public Procurement
What this domain tests
Budget architecture and process, local finance and the procurement cycle under Law No. 131/2015 - the rules a civil servant applies when committing public money.
Core rules
- The budget system comprises the state budget, local budgets, the state social insurance budget and the mandatory health insurance funds. Principles include unity, universality, annuality, specification, equilibrium and transparency.
- The Ministry of Finance prepares the draft state budget, the Government approves it and Parliament adopts it by law; local councils adopt their own budgets within the legal framework.
- Local revenues mix own revenues, shared revenues and equalisation transfers; expenditure must match competences.
- Control is layered: internal financial control and the Treasury inside the executive, external audit by the Court of Accounts (Law No. 260/2017).
- Procurement principles: transparency, competition, equal treatment, non-discrimination, proportionality and efficient use of funds.
- Procedures include open tender, restricted tender, request for quotations, negotiation and electronic catalogue purchases; the estimated value determines the procedure and may not be split artificially.
- Award criteria are lowest price or best price-quality ratio; exclusion grounds cover conflicts of interest, corruption, tax arrears and professional misconduct. Contests go to the National Agency for the Resolution of Complaints (ANSC).
Worked example
An authority needs 300 office laptops and issues three separate orders of 100 units to stay below the open-tender threshold. Step 1: the estimated value is the total for the homogeneous purchase. Step 2: splitting one purchase to avoid a procedure is prohibited. Step 3: the correct route is to aggregate the value, select the procedure accordingly and award on the published criterion.
Traps that cost marks
Using the contract price instead of the estimated value; assuming the lowest price always wins; missing the deadline to contest an award; treating an equalisation transfer as own revenue.