Mitrovica, 18 October 2017 – Lëvizja FOL today has hels FOL Hapur with the candidates for the mayor for the municipality of South Mitrovica, where the analysis “Municipalities and their role in employment” was published.

Jeton Zulfaj from FOL emphasized that there is an approach and perception that the role of municipalities is poor in economic development and employment. This approach and this perception can be best seen at this time of elections where no one wants to ask the candidates if they have any plans on how to boost economic development and create jobs, “said Zulfaj. According to him, Municipalities can and should work on economic development plans and strategies, because they are responsible for licensing business activities, applying taxes and payments, providing infrastructure and basic education, and adopting regulations that affect economic development and job creation.

Qazim Shala, NISMA candidate for Kosovo, said capacity building and economic development should go hand in hand. “We have German associations training the cadres, but we do not know that these cadres are being trained to work in Kosovo or Germany,” said Shala. In the absence of this information we do not know the effect of the implemented policies.

Valdete Idrizi, candidate from Partia Demokratike e Kosovës, stated that young people should be stimulated as much as possible in order to be more active. “To promote vocational schools and to break the negative perceptions of these schools,” she said. The promotion of vocational schools would help in the development of young people and would thus create great opportunities for their employment. According to her, volunteering and practical work can be done in cooperation with the municipality where the municipality would pay for 1 year the practical work of the youth.

Fehmi Ferati candidate from Lëvizja VETËVENDOSJE, said the city lacks a market where products can be sold. While there are no opportunities to practice, youth remains inexperienced, and thus makes it more difficult to get involved in the labor market. “Young people should be prepared for the labor market by practicing at least six months, as is the case in America,” Ferati said. Creating merit-based systems and policies would increase confidence in institutions and, consequently, youth employment. “Young people have mostly harmed politics, especially when there is a lack of meritocracy as a criterion for employment.

Nystret Preteni, the candidate of the FJALA Party, said that Mitrovica’s youth should be prepared for the domestic market rather than for the international market. “We will create access to employment, and education so our young people will not deviate” – said Preteni.

This activity was supported by Enhancing Youth Employment – EYE Project – project of the Swiss Cooperation Office and implemented by Helvetas Swiss Cooperation and MDA.

Prishtina, 17 October 2017 – Lëvizja FOL held today the discussion with the Minister of Justice, Abelard Tahiri, where was discussed about the mechanisms of integrity of the justice system and legal reforms in the fight against corruption, including the law on the Anti-Corruption Agency and the law on the Protection of Informers. Also was discussed the future of the disciplinary prosecutor’s office.

The lecture was held at the Center for Education and Anti-Corruption (AEC) at Lëvizja FOL, where the audience of this lecture were students from Public and Private Universities.

Movement FOL soon begins the series of lectures / conversations with the Court and various Prosecutors.

This conversation was supported by the Dutch Embassy in Prishtina within the project “Promoting Integrity in the Judiciary Sector”.

Prishtina, 13 October 2017 – Lëvizja FOL, as part of coalition Demokracia në Veprim, has published the report on monitoring of the media during the electoral campaign for the early elections. The detailed report can be found here: Election campaign monitoring report for central elections.

Raporti i monitorimit të fushatës zgjedhore për zgjedhjet qendrore.

 

Peja, 13 October 2017 – Representatives of Lëvizja FOL met today with Mr. Kreshnik Radoniqi, President of the Basic Court in Peja. During this meeting were discussed about the work of the Basic Court of Peja, the large number of cases in this court as well as the working conditions of the judges. “The Peja Court is heavily charged with cases, in particular the Serious Crimes Department, as it is known that the city of Peja faces major crime problems,” Radoniqi said.

At this meeting, representatives of the Movement FOL presented to the Chief Judge the annual statistics of 2016 for corruption cases where the Court of Peja from 53 cases of this nature, only 29 of them has resolved. Meanwhile, in the first six months of this year, Peja had 68 cases out of the corruption offense chapter, and only 26 of them have been completed. According to them Peja has a large number of cases of this nature, which was not contested by Mr. Radoniqi. He said the reason for this large number of these cases is the lack of judges as well as the working conditions in this court. “We still do not have a court spokesperson, as well as we do not have a separate office, which is handled with statistics,” Radoniqi said.

This grant is funded by the Democratic Society Promotion (DSP) project – funded by the Swiss Cooperation Office in Kosovo (SCO-K) and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DANIDA) and managed by the Kosovo Civil Society Foundation (KCSF).

Gjakova, 13 October 2017 – Representatives of Lëvizja FOL in the framework of meetings with the President of the Basic Courts of Kosovo met today, Vaton Durguti, President of the Basic Court in Gjakova. The discussion topic of this meeting was the work and working conditions in this court. The topic of discussion was also statistics on counter-corruption cases.

“The Basic Court of Gjakova faces a small influx of corruption cases, because we treat these subjects with a high priority. At the Basic Court of Gjakova there are currently 15 judges, 5 of whom work in the Department for Serious Crimes. For this reason we do not have cases older than 2 years, “Durguti said. According to him, the meetings with the parties are regular every Monday, where in these meetings is present also he as chairman of the court.

The Basic Court of Gjakova, currently works in the old building, because the new building has not been inaugurated. Also, this court does not have a special office of statistics as well as no court spokesperson.

This grant is funded by the Democratic Society Promotion (DSP) project – funded by the Swiss Cooperation Office in Kosovo (SCO-K) and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DANIDA) and managed by the Kosovo Civil Society Foundation (KCSF).

 

 

Gjakova, 12 October 2017 – Representatives from the Lëvizja FOL met today with the President of the Basic Prosecution of Gjakova, Mr. Ali Selimaj. During this meeting were discussed about the work of the Gjakova Basic Prosecution Office, in particular on cases of corrupt nature. Mr. Selimaj said that “corruption cases always have priority in Gjakova Basic Prosecution”. We are currently with a number of prosecutors and therefore we are good at the subjects of this nature.

Meanwhile, regarding the object of this Prosecution, “the object is too old, the conditions under which our prosecutors are in a miserable state. Although the object is under construction, due to the procurement procedures, which are re-tendered, the transfer to the new facility has been postponed, “he said.

This grant is funded by the Democratic Society Promotion (DSP) project – funded by the Swiss Cooperation Office in Kosovo (SCO-K) and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DANIDA) and managed by the Kosovo Civil Society Foundation (KCSF).

Ferizaj, 06 October 2017 – Representatives from the Lëvizja FOL met today with Mr. Shukri Jashari, Chairman of the Basic Prosecution in Ferizaj. During this meeting was discussed about the work of the Basic Prosecution in Ferizaj, in particular on cases of corrupt nature. z. Jashari said that “cases of this nature are a challenge for the Basic Prosecution in Ferizaj, especially in this period where we are with a very small number of prosecutors. Many prosecutors left the State Prosecution, some in Specials. Due to the lack of prosecutors, cases of corrupt nature cannot reach the zero point, “he said.

During January-June 2017, the Basic Prosecution in Ferizaj from 125 cases has solved 45 of them.

Meanwhile, regarding the working conditions, the facility of the Basic Prosecution in Ferizaj has been inaugurated for several months and fulfills all the working standards.

This grant is funded by the Democratic Society Promotion (DSP) project – funded by the Swiss Cooperation Office in Kosovo (SCO-K) and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DANIDA) and managed by the Kosovo Civil Society Foundation (KCSF).

Prishtina, 03 October 2017 – Lëvizja FOL held a press conference where it presented the anti-corruption statistics of the Basic Courts. Jeton Zulfaj from FOL said that the data presented are statistics for the period January-March as well as April-June for 2017. According to him, the statistics are official and have been received by the Kosovo Judicial Council. “These data were taken from the group of criminal offenses: ‘Official Corruption and Offenses against Officials, Articles 422 – 437, Chapter XXXIV of the Criminal Code of Kosovo’. Meanwhile, measuring the efficiency of Courts in the field of fighting-corruption has been done mainly relying on the methodology used by the European Commission on Efficiency of Justice, “said Zulfaj. According to him, the work of the Courts is measured on subjects and the measurements do not indicate the quality of the cases and the quality of the judges’ work but only the performance in dealing with the inflow of cases.

“Fields in which FOL measures the performance of the Courts are: Flow of cases, case resolution rate, case turnover rate, course of case resolution, duration of case handling and index of collected cases,” said Zulfaj .

At central level, the courts have managed to cope with the flux and have shown a positive rate of solving the cases by solving more subjects than they have received, however, 120% for the first quarter (January-March) and 114% for the second quarter (April -June) are insufficient to reduce the number of collected materials. The Pristina Court in particular has a high number of cases.

The Basic Court of Ferizaj / Urosevac in April-June worked at a rate of 350% by accepting 5 cases for the same period and solving 15. This rate has led to a reduction in the number of transferred cases for the following period, which made time for justice diminish considerably.

Gjilan on the other hand in April-June received only 8 cases in the field of corruption and solved only 2, thus increasing the number of transferred cases.

Performance in coping with the flow of new cases in relation to the solved cases influences the reception for justice. This is because unresolved cases are added to the total of transferred cases. Prishtina with a turnover rate of 0.15 and a 161% case rate for the period January to March, takes 600 days to solve a case, whereas in the period April to June, Gjilan with a turnover rate of 0.03 and a 25% course of case resolution, made a subject handled for 3000 days.

Gjilan has a bad performance in both reporting periods (January-March and April-June).

FOL hopes that these statistics will first inform the public on the efficiency of the courts in the field of anti-corruption but also assist courts in improving the efficiency of case resolution.

*Statistics are official statistics published by the Kosovo Judicial Council.

This grant is funded by the Democratic Society Promotion (DSP) project – funded by the Swiss Cooperation Office in Kosovo (SCO-K) and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DANIDA) and managed by the Kosovo Civil Society Foundation (KCSF).

Prishtina, 21 September 2017 –  Lëvizja FOL participated at the roundtable “From Facts to Action”, organized by the “Seak for Justice” program. Gersi Gashi, from Lëvizja FOL, presented how the e-Court project has helped to increase the transparency of the judiciary. Of the 54 decisions published at the beginning of this project, there are now over 2,000.

The e-gjykata.org platform is only the first step towards digitalization of the judiciary and consequently increased transparency. The platform provides the ability to filter decisions through 13 different filters, provides access to trial schedules, and visually presents judges assets.

This project is part of the “Seak for Justice” program funded by the US State Department / INL and implemented by the National Center for State Courts.

Prishtina, 15 September 2017 – Lëvizja FOL held a press conference where it presented the anti-corruption statistics of the Basic Prosecutions and Special Prosecution Office. Jeton Zulfaj from Lëvizja FOL said that the data presented are statistics for the period January-March as well as April-June for 2017. According to him, the statistics are official and have been received by the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council. “These data were taken from the group of criminal offenses: ‘Official Corruption and Offenses against Officials, Articles 422 – 437, Chapter XXXIV of the Criminal Code of Kosovo’. Meanwhile, measuring the efficiency of the Prosecution in the field of counter-corruption has been done mainly relying on the methodology used by the European Commission on Efficiency of Justice but also in other methods, “Zulfaj said. According to him, the work of the Prosecution is mainly measured by persons and that the measurements do not indicate the quality of the cases and the quality of the work of prosecutors.

The flow of anti-corruption cases at the national level for the period January-March is: unsolved cases 1151, new cases 203, cases at work 1354, solved cases 228, unsolved cases – 1126. Meanwhile for the period April-June are: unsolved 1083, new cases 160, cases at work 1243, solved cases 271, unsolved cases 972.

The case resolution rate is an indicator of the performance of the Prosecutor’s Office. Based on the performance for the first quarter of 2017, it appears that the Prosecution has worked effectively above 100% at the central level, the case resolution for the first three months is 112%, while for the period April to June it is 169 %.

While the disposition time at the national level stands at 450 days for the period January-March. Meanwhile, for April – June is 333 days. Regarding the index of cases that shows us the nationally collected cases, the index stands at 5.0 for the first three months, and 4.0 for the third quarter.

“Fields in which FOL measures the performance of the Prosecution are: case flow, case resolution rate, case turnover rate, case resolution trend, disposition time and backlog index,” said Zulfaj .

Meanwhile regarding the findings for the Basic Prosecutions, Zulfaj said that “Pristina’s Basic Prosecution has the largest number of transfered cases for January-March, which are 595, has received 102, and has resolved 28. Similar performance has indicated the Basic Prosecution of Prishtina for the second trimester, where it has inherited 574 cases, 71 has accepted as new and has 114 “.

The Basic Prosecution of Ferizaj with the Basic Prosecutor of Prizren has the best case resolution for the period January-March 2017 with PTHF = 200% PTHP = 177%, meanwhile poor performance during this period have shown Mitrovica and Prishtina PTHM = 41 % PTHP = 27%. In the second three months, Mitrovica Basic Prosecution has the highest case resolution rate of 470%, while the Special Prosecution Office has the lowest of 90%.

Based on the trend, the Basic Prosecution of Prizren and the Basic Prosecution of Ferizaj are expected to level the cases in the next five years, while the Basic Prosecution of Peja for 32 years. Meanwhile for the period April – June, the Basic Prosecution of Gjakova is expected to level the courses in the next 4 years.

The time to resolve the cases shows that Mitrovica is the worst for the first three months after the prosecution there receives 4500 days for dealing with cases (persons) escorted by Pristina’s Basic Prosecution with 2250 days. Regarding the second three months of this year, the Special Prosecution takes 1000 days to handle cases for persons, while Pristina receives 428 days.

* Clarification: The work of the Prosecution is mainly measured by persons and that this measurement does not indicate the quality of cases and the quality of the prosecutors’ work, the quality of the administration service or the integrity and professionalism of prosecutors.

* Statistics are official statistics published by Kosovo Prosecutorial Council. In some cases, the number of separate prosecution cases does not reflect the total number of cases at the central level. These inaccuracies in numbers should be addressed to the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council.

​ This grant is funded by the Democratic Society Promotion (DSP) project – funded by the Swiss Cooperation Office in Kosovo (SCO-K) and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DANIDA) and managed by the Kosovo Civil Society Foundation (KCSF).

Prishtina, 15 September 2017 – Lëvizja FOL has published the report “Beyond Numbers – Prosecution Performance in the Fight Against Corruption for the period January-June 2017.

First quarter Second quarter

Prishtina, 12 September 2017 – Lëvizja FOL has published the report “The Minimum wage and its effects on employment”.

Prishtina, 12 September 2017 – Lëvizja FOL organized an open discussion on the Minimum Wage and its Effects on Employment, where the panelists were: Haxhi Arifi – BSPK, Alejtin Berisha – Entrepreneur, Besnik Bislimi – Professor, Lumnije Hashani – Kosovo Chamber of Commerce.

Jeton Zulfaj from the Lëvizja FOL said that the minimum wage is one of the most sensitive issues in decision-making and it is not just state policy to intervene in the labor market but it is also a moral issue to ensure that there is no exploitation of workers. “The 2011 decision on minimum wage was an ad-hoc decision, where there was no public discussion involving the academy, trade unions, and businesses. Formulas for determining the minimum wage are not explained and justified, while the minimum wage divided by age does not have any legal and logical basis and as such is discriminatory. At the academic level, the growth of the minimum salaries on the equilibrium level is not supported as it will have a negative impact on employment, “Zulfaj said.

Besniki Bislimi, professor of the course Economics of labor market, said that the minimum wage in normal countries is not considered an instrument to fight poverty. “The example is America where only 4% are affected by the minimum wage, and usually are students, who are not necessarily part of the poor. Better was the wage subsidy than minimum wages as policy instruments. Trade unions should not be part of minimal wage disputes as they have a conflict of interest, “Bislimi said, adding that trade union members usually receive wages higher than the minimum wage and are not affected by it.

Meanwhile, Alajtin Berisha, entrepreneur, said there is no place in the world that business requires minimum wage growth, because the business does not have to trust someone else to adjust the salary. Trade unions have a conflict of interest in determining the minimum wage. “An increase in the minimum wage would have a negative impact on students to stop studying. Right now this is not the case, “Berisha said.

Haxhi Arifi, from BSPK, said that at the Economic and Social Council (ESC) there were numerous discussions on the minimum wage, and at the end a minimum wage was categorized, but it was discriminatory for workers. This decision was taken by consensus. The government has ruled out what has been achieved as a consensus and have decided that it is discrimination against the young age. We as BSPK have demanded that the base be 60% of the average wage to be taken as a minimum wage.

Lumnije Hashani from Kosovo Chamber of Commerce said that the categorization of the minimum wage is not supported even by Kosovo Chamber of Commerce because it is a discriminatory decision. “ESC has an advisory role and the government is the one that makes the decisions. If we take into account the established legal criteria for the base, then the minimum wage was supposed to increase every year, but that does not happen, “said Hashani. According to her, based on a survey conducted by the Kosovo Chamber of Commerce with about 500 businesses, 80% of them have stated that the minimum wage categorization should be removed and 85% said it should be the minimum wage. While most have said that 220 Euro would be affordable for businesses as a minimum wage.

This activity was supported by Enhancing Youth Employment – EYE Project – the Swiss Cooperation Office project and implemented by Helvetas Swiss Cooperation and MDA.

Prishtina, 7 september 2017 – Lëvizja FOL, through the “Seeking for Justice” program, held today a meeting with judicial actors to discuss transparency in the judicial system in Kosovo. The panel composed of Dastid Pallaska, Lawyer, Aferdita Bytyçi, President of the Basic Court in Prishtina, and Armend Hamiti, Prosecutor at the Basic Prosecution in Prishtina, where discussed and shared their views on the transparency in the judicial system.

Gersi Gashi, from Lëvizja FOL, opened the discussion with two essential issues: the publication of judgments and the publication of reasons for non-attendance of court hearings. z. Gashi emphasized that the publication of the judgments serves to the benefit of the citizens as well as the judiciary as an institution. The publication of judgments, among other things, enhances legal certainty, encourages judges to argue cases in the best, helps increase citizen confidence in the judiciary and helps students to better understand the system by studying concrete cases.

The President of the Basic Court in Prishtina, Aferdita Bytyci stressed out that although transparency remains a priority of the court, and this can be seen from the number of published judgments, it is very important to understand that there is a huge lack of resources in the courts. She added that the efficiency of the courts, especially that one of Pristina, is increasing and as a result, more cases have been solved than they were received in court.

One of the reasons for the distrust of citizens in the courts and the prosecutor’s office is the non-publication of their work and the failure to inform the public on time. Lack of transparency by the courts themselves enables citizens to be informed only of other sources. Therefore, it is important that courts continue with the publication of court decisions, work on publishing all decisions (including those that are not final) and start publishing the reasons for not holding the hearings. “Increasing transparency in the work of the courts will have an impact on increasing citizen trust in the courts,” Gashi added.

Dastid Pallaska, in the role of a lawyer, strongly supports the publication of court decisions first by anonymizing personal data, for reasons of non-violation of the presumption of innocence. “There is an even deeper issue when it comes to transparency. Non-professional reasoning of decisions and lack of transparency in them. Because there are times when the lawyer’s argument is not mentioned at all in the court decision, “Pallaska sead.

Pallaska also sead that as a solution should not be a continuous complaint for a lack of judges, because according to him this can be easily covered by increasing the number of professional associates and legal assistants for judges.

This would be a multifunctional strategy for reducing the number of old cases, professional preparation of future judges and would also affect transparency.

Finally, all panelists were of the opinion that the publication of judgments should be made, and that the courts should inform the citizens of their work.

 

Prishtina, 31 August 2017– The Assembly of Members of Lëvizja FOL held today the next meeting where the election of the Chairperson of the Assembly and the Executive Director of Lëvizja FOL was made..

Chairman of the Assembly for the next two years was re-elected Armend Pajaziti, while with 15 votes for, 1 vote against and 1 abstention, Petrit Zogaj was re-elected director of Lëvizja FOL. The number of members of the Assembly of Lëvizja FOL reaches 27, whereas in this meeting present were 17 of them.

Petrit Zogaj is co-founder of Lëvizja FOL and since September 2011 served as Executive Director. Zogaj is also the founder of S’bunker and a member of its editorial board. He has studied Political Science at the University of Prishtina.

Also during this meeting was approved the Financial Report and Work Report for 2016.

 

 

Prishtina, 23 August 2017 – Lëvizja FOL published the report “Implications_of_Health_Insurance_on_Economy“.

Prishtina 20 July 2017 – Lëvizja FOL held today an open discussion on “The Impact of Health Insurance in Employment, with a Focus on Youth”. Petrit Zogaj from Lëvizja FOL said that FOL has conducted a research regarding the impact of health insurance on employment and that through this debate, we will understand more about not starting the collection of health insurance premiums.

 

Gersi Gashi from FOL presented the findings of the report “The Impact of Health Insurance in the Kosovo Economy”. The key findings show that in the absence of concrete and rapid steps, we are still without health insurance. Gashi said that the transparency of this process is crucial for this system to function. “Among other things, there should be: consultation and consensus by key stakeholders, and meet all the criteria foreseen before starting the collection of premiums,” Gashi said, adding that the impact of health insurance on the basis of the findings is positive. Likewise, theories and empirical findings indicate that citizens’ willingness to pay for health insurance and the burden on businesses would not be as great as hiring young people.

Meanwhile, Haxhi Arifi, President of the Union of Independent Trade Unions of Kosovo (BSPK), said that the non-implementation of laws has a bad impact in the state of Kosovo because health insurance is not only about health. “It is not surprising that governments fail to fulfill their obligations to implement laws. It is not a good thing that law enforcement is neither implemented nor for the state or for the partners. Only in Kosovo we have remained without a Law on Insurance; in the region they all have. This law is not just about health insurance but also employment especially for young people because we have a contingent of 25 thousand young people who are capable of the labor market each year, “Arifi said.

The chairman of the Federation of Kosovo Health Unions, Blerim Syla, said that guilty of the lack of health insurance in Kosovo are all the governments so far, but also the international factor. “The Government of Kosovo is guilty, but not only this government, there is also the international factor. The concept paper that is made predicts that medium businesses are hit and big businesses are favored. Then how does this hiring youth? We as a federation have proposed to make an escalation. Take the example of Slovenia and Croatia, which have 26 categories of premium payments, “Syla said adding that the legal criteria for commencing collection of primums have not yet been met. According to him, the list of services that will cover health insurance is not yet compiled, the pricelist is missing, the equipment with health cards is missing, there is no exact date of service.

Lumnije Ajdini from the Kosovo Business Alliance (AKB) said that in January they knew they would not have health insurance, as promised. “It is very important for all of us, and especially for young people to have health insurance. Since January we knew we could not have health insurance in July because the jobs were not done, I suspect they have not started yet, “she said.

Lumnije Hashani, from Kosovo Chamber of Commerce, said that in cooperation with businesses have listed the recommendations on this law and sent it to the government.

Fatmir Haxholli, a social and employment policy expert, said the lack of sufficient pressure is the cause of not starting the collection of health insurance premiums. According to him, there are many people who work in the informal market and if there is health insurance, people will put more pressure on employers to provide them with contracts. “It would also affect unemployed people. If there were health insurance, people would work because everybody wanted health insurance for their children, “said Haxholli.

Lundrim Aliu, from the World Bank in Kosovo, said that the World Bank has supported the health system in Kosovo throughout this time. “The World Bank has supported the Kosovo government in the reforms that are being made in health, in this case also for health insurance. We have demanded that poor citizens remain unaffected by health insurance payments and that the provision of services begins in parallel with the collection of premiums, “said Aliu, adding that there is still a lot of work to be done in this regard and the Ministry of Health should tell us where the jobs are left.

Prishtina, 18 July 2017 – Lëvizja FOL held today a roundtable discussion where a draft report “No Tax without Information: Transparency in Public Procurement in Kosovo” was published. Petrit Zogaj from FOL said that today will be presented the report on public procurement. “FOL has been dealing about 6 years with public procurement, seeing that the obstacles are numerous FOL is committed to make recommendations and to influence the improvement of the situation in this field,” said Zogaj.

Meanwhile, Jeton Zulfaj from FOL said that the methodology of this report includes a series of interviews with institutions, research through case studies, focusing on transparency in public procurement. The main findings of this report relate to the limited transparency offered by the current legal framework and limited access to public documents based on the law on public procurement. The centralized procurement system causes corruption to be present, while the lack of partner register in public procurement leaves much room for corruption development. Failure to verify foreign businesses from ARBK causes many foreign businesses to come and operate in Kosovo. Zulfaj added that access to contracts is often justified by calling on commercial interests, while the online public procurement platform offers limited access for citizens wishing to know more about public contracts.

Vjosa Pllana fromFOL said that “institutions that restrict access to public documents on the basis of the protection of economic and commercial interests make constitutional violations”.

Safet Hoxha, chairman of the PPRC, said that the findings of this report reflect all the involvement of institutions in the spending of public money. According to him, all stakeholders should have equal access at all stages so that transparency is at the right level. “As procurement is being defined as a complex process, we need to know that our legislation has also been able to reach a satisfactory level, although there is still a need for improvement.” Hoxha said that every purchase over 1000 Euros, any changes in the tendering process, any result, decisions of the PRB etc., are published on the PPRC’s website. “We are working intensively to improve e-procurement to increase the level of transparency and increase the confidence of citizens in the public procurement process.” According to him, E-PROCUREMENT is currently at a limited stage in terms of access to it, but it is working on this and when the platform is stabilized, NGOs and citizens will have access.

Stephen Carpenter from USAID / TEAM said it would stop more on transparency of procurement processes. “To have a good procurement system we should have E-Procurement even more functional, good functioning of auditing, and have active media and civil society,” said Carpenter, adding that Kosovo has made some progress in these four areas but still a lot of work to do.

According to him, the Government has introduced some key modules, but there are still other modules. “Preparation of technical specifications, review of complaints, contract management, these are the areas where USAID / TEAM is working with other stakeholders to increase the capacity”.

Shaip Havolli, director of AKM, said that with review of the legal framework, the agency has added some responsibilities regarding the investigation of procurement activities. “The more problem lies in monitoring the contracts. There is usually doubt about the fact that economic operators are rewarded during the implementation because quality is not good or less served. Also, the problem lies with the procurement officers who have to be sanctioned for the violations they have committed. So far, there are very few penalties for these officials in writing any more, “said Havolli, adding that businesses that are under investigation or those who have been brought criminal charges are not entering the black list by the contracting authorities.

Kreshnik Gashi from BIRN said that we are discussing transparency and accountability in public procurement, but we are forgetting that the government is still keeping us the biggest contract in this country on the highway. “There is a year and a half that BIRN has won the trial and the Office of the Prime Minister refuses to give us access to the expenditure bills,” said Gashi.

Mehdi Pllashniku from ARBK said that all the information that ARBK publishes on the web site are defined by law.

 

Ky grant është financuar nga projekti Promovimi i Shoqërisë Demokratike (DSP) – i financuar nga Zyra Zvicerane për Bashkëpunim në Kosovë (SCO-K) dhe Ministria e Punëve të Jashtme e Danimarkës (DANIDA) dhe menaxhuar nga Kosovar Civil Society Foundation – KCSF

Prishtina, 18th  July 2017 – Levizja FOL published the report  “No taxation without information: Transparency in Public Procurement in Kosovo”No taxation without information

Prishtina 15 Jue 2017 –  Lëvizja FOL announces competition for 2 interns. Practitioners will have the opportunity to contribute to the various projects of the Lëvizja FOL in the field of counter-corruption.

The conditions to be met are:

1. Students
2. Age – 19-26 years
3. Knowledge of English is a priority

All interested parties send their CV and a motivation letter of no more than 300 words – to the email address: [email protected] with the subject: Application for Practice.

Deadline: June 26, 2017

Only candidates who will be selected on the shortlist will be called to the interview.