As a result of violations of procurement law we take risk of losing millions of euro

Prishtina, 05 April 2011 – Movement FOL publishes the monitoring report of procurement process. This is the first report dealing with public procurement. The findings of this report show that institutions and public enterprises in Kosovo are harming the state budget in millions of Euros due to violations of the law and regulations on procurement. This is happening because of different interests, corruption affairs and irresponsibility of officials. Even different departments risk of paying hundred thousands of euro due to the disregard of procedures and laws.

PTK is likely to pay 16 million euro due to irresponsibility – PTK, in April last year, had signed a contract for the separation of the two billing platforms for Telecom and mobile telephony VALA, worth 20 million euro to the Israeli company “Amodcs”. After signing this contract, the Government of Kosovo through the Ministry of Economy and Finance made a decision to terminate the contract. This ministry did not responded earlier, although there were eight days after the announcement of the winner of this project from PTK. Israeli company then decided to take the case to the Court of Arbitration in London seeking damages exceeding the amount of 16 million euro;

Violations of the Municipality of Prishtina – In a bid to construct a school in Hajvali, the value of which was over 900 thousand euro, had violated procurement law, respectively Article 50 which obliges the contracting authorities to specify in the tender dossier that the contract will be given to the operator with the cheapest offer or most favourable economically. Municipality of Prishtina in April 2010 had left open both possibilities. Procurement Review Body had cancelled this tender asking Procurement Office to re-evaluate and specify the criteria according the Procurement Law. The other case is constructing a school in the village Tenezhdoll. Even though two months ago they started work, Prishtina Municipality had paid the company “Plan Ing” from Prishtina in the amount of 10 thousand euro to design the constructing project of this school. Work had begun on August 4 by the company, “Rexha”, and the ceremony was presented by the Mayor of Prishtina, Isa Mustafa, while the tender was announced long after;

Ministry of Justice must pay 80 thousand euro compensation – MJ last year had signed a contract with the company “Kaqandolli” which was declared the winner in the tender for the supply of vehicles announced by this authority. The offer of this company to supply 20 vehicles had been over 200 thousand euro. Officials of this Ministry had terminated the contract justifying that this economic operator had ignored the tender specifications. This company in September last year sued the MJ in Commercial Court. The reviewing Expert of this court, in its report had concluded that the company should be paid 80 thousand euro compensation due to the unilateral termination of the contract.

Ministry of Public Administration: five-time contract – On August 13 last year the Ministry of Public Administration had awarded the tender of managing the costs of government vehicles with GPS system to the company “PBC” in consortium with “Navirec” from Estonia. This consortium was awarded one lot (part) of this tender that had to do with assembling the equipment for 2,500 of governmental vehicles, budget agencies and municipalities. The offer of this company was 187,500 euro, but according to the Anti-Corruption Agency, this value was increased five times from the moment of signing the contract, which is a violation of the procurement.

Illegal Contract of Telecommunications Regulatory Authority ” The Chairman of the Board of Directors of TRA, Ekrem Hoxha, on February 23, 2011 had taken the decision to dismiss senior procurement official, Avdi Feri , grounded that he had committed serious violations of work. This was because the procurement officer had cancelled the notice of contract award which declared winner the consortium R&T and TBS from Albania, which was declared the winner in the tender with an amount of 830 thousand euro. The tender was about the construction of the national monitoring centre the radio spectrum. This was requested by the Procurement Review Body.

PRB in 2010 has received 331 cases, in 62 cases the procurement activity has been cancelled (Re-tender), as a result of violations of the provisions of the PPL, for irregularities in the bidding dossiers or development with poor procurement procedures, in 84 cases, the PRB decided that the Contracting Authority make re-evaluation of the bids after they had made mistakes due to incorrect evaluations by the evaluation committees.

RECOMMANDATIONS

1. Movement FOL recommends that the Government of Kosovo take into account the recommendations of the European Commission that The new Public Procurement is in line with EU criteria, where the Kosovo aspires to be a member;
2. Movement FOL recommends the Agency Against Corruption that cases like those identified by FOL move forward with caution, even when there are no complaints from any party of interest for the purpose of reporting on time and avoid unnecessary losses;
3. Movement FOL recommends the State Prosecutor to initiate investigations on these cases where there are deliberate serious violations of the law;
4. Movement FOL recommend the PPO that companies listed on the blacklist, and those who have cheated during the application process for various tenders be disqualified from the opportunity to obtain any relevant tender.