A roundtable discussion on the activities and problems of public procurement in Mitrovica

Mitrovica, August 1, 2014 – Today, FOL Movement has organized a roundtable discussion in Mitrovica, the sixth and the last on the series of of roundtables with mayors on the topic “Public procurement activities in the first six months of the year.” During this meeting was presented a report with summarized statistics on procurement activities initiated by Mitrovica municipality.

Participants in this meeting were the Mayor of Mitrovica, Agim Bahtiri, the chief of procurement, Haxhimet Ferati, assembly members of various political parties and representatives of civil society and media.

Kenan Tora from FOL Movement said that the purpose of that meeting was to discuss the possible problems and irregularities that might go with the development of public procurement procedures in Mitrovica Municipality. He further went on with the findings of the report of the municipality stating that during the first 6 months of this year Mitrovica Municipality has announced 16 contract notices, 14 notices of contract award, 5 cancellation notices and no cancellation of the award, whereas the PRB has taken noa decision against Mitrovica Municipality. Regarding the problems that are generally present in public procurement, he stressed the problem of non-standardization of the drafting process of the tender dossier, exceptionally low prices, non-coordination between different institutions and non-professionalism of evaluation committees.

After that the mayor of Mitrovica Agim Bahtiri, said that since entering the office as the mayor has been committed to prevent the misuse of public money. He said that “This is toil of all my fellow citizens, and I am highly committed to protect every dime of misuse of public money and will invest where necessary.” He went on to say that all irregularities and problems mentioned by FOL are true in the municipality of Mitrovica and the biggest concern are the frame contracts which have been signed prior to his coming to the office with exceptionally low prices but also not very high prices for certain products. According to the mayor, he is working with his staff to find a legal way to solve the problem and they are showing the utmost care toward prices in tenders to come.

Fadil Veseli, an assembly member from PDK in Mitrovica said that the executive, so far had realized only 1% of the planned capital investments. Veseli also raised the issue of buying some products or services by the municipality without respecting the legal proceedings during this period.

But the chief procurement Haxhimet Ferati said that all the procedures have been respected and further he continued by emphasizing that the municipality of Mitrovica faces all the problems mentioned by FOL and the concerns are are exceptionally low and high prices.

Faruk Mujka, assembly member from Self-determination Movement said that the law should be amended and given more priority to the most economically advantageous criterion in selecting the winners because this would guarantee more quality in their work.