Reaction: The Kosovo Government is not ready to publish the Morine-Merdare highway contract

Prishtina, 19 March 2018 – Lëvizja FOL has been notified today that the Ministry of Infrastructure has appealed against the indictment of the Basic Court of Prishtina, through which was approved the lawsuit request of the Lëvizja FOL for access to the tender dossier for the construction of the Morine-Merdare highway and a copy of the contract for construction of this highway.

FOL considers that despite the legal right in the complaint that the Ministry of Infrastructure has against this indictments the main purpose of this complaint is the secret keeping of this contract as so far. This is also confirmed by the fact that one of the points of the complaint relates to maintaining the confidentiality of the Contract, even though it is a Public Contract.

This once again shows that the Government of Kosovo is not ready for the publication of the contract and the tender dossier for the construction of this highway, which seriously violates the citizens’ right to know how their money was spent.

FOL expects the Court of Appeal to validate the indictments of the Basic Court of Pristina in a reasonable time and to oblige the Ministry of Infrastructure to allow the access to public documents such as FOL’s request eight years ago.

FOL considers that the tendency to delay this process by the Ministry of Infrastructure, respectively Kosovo Government is a direct blow to transparency and accountability.