Author: Fjori Sinoruka
The systemization of roads and sewers, the cleaning of the city, the purchase of fruits and vegetables for the gardens and dormitories have a common denominator in the Municipality of Elbasan: the companies, which receive the right to offer these Services and goods, are mostly not subject to competition. openly, but conclude agreements through negotiation with representatives of the municipality.
An investigation by the Center for Quality Journalism reveals that more than half of the procurement procedures in the municipality, which provides Services to about 210 citizens, are carried out through the direct negotiation process, without publicly announcing the need for goods or Services.
The investigation of procurement practices in this municipality also sheds light on the possible conflict of interest between its former senior managers and operators, who benefited and benefit from public tenders.
The center has analyzed the procurement procedures of three companies, which are the only ones that have benefited from the largest amounts of public contracts during a four-year period in 2012-2016.
The three companies that have benefited the most from the provision of Services, works and goods in the Municipality of Elbasan are Victoria Invest sh. p. k., Bajrami N. sh. p. k. AND Bikade sh. BC
In 56% of cases, these companies have benefited from the contracts without open competition. Over the course of four years, the three operators have signed only 97 contracts with the Municipality of Elbasan, of which in 54 the tendering process was carried out with a negotiated procedure, without prior announcement.
The law on public procurement clearly states that the procedure with negotiation, without announcing the offer instead of the open procurement procedure should be carried out only in cases of specific requests or emergencies.
Meanwhile, the Public Procurement Agency, the Albanian and European audit authorities, as well as civil society representatives have made occasional appeals to contracting authorities in central and local institutions to use this procedure as little as possible.
because the process of tendering with negotiation, without announcing the demand for goods or Services, creates a closed relationship, where the contracting unit itself chooses the economic operator to fulfill the need.
This process is considered to be highly prone to favoritism and corruption.
Likewise, public budgets do not benefit financially, as contracts are negotiated at the limit values of available funds.
In the conditions of open competition, economic operators try to offer the requested service or product under the limit fund due to competitiveness.
Meanwhile, the conflict of interest seems to have been present in this local government unit during the four years under consideration.
The former deputy mayor of the Municipality of Elbasan from 2013 to 2016, Anduena Prifti Bajrami, is the wife of Nazif Bajrami, the sole administrator of the company Bajrami N. Before assuming this position, she also served as a manager of the company, which is run by her husband.
During the four-year period under review, this company alone won 24 tenders from the Municipality of Elbasan worth 372,006,014.00 ALL or about 3 million euros. A part of these public contracts were concluded precisely at the time when Anduena Prifti Bajrami was the deputy mayor of the municipality.
The Municipality of Elbasan was asked to comment on this case and explain whether it was acted in the conditions of the conflict of interest, but no answer was received.
During this time, according to the data of the Commercial Register, the company has reported unusual actions. In September 2013 its sole shareholder Nazif Barjami sold 100% of its shares to citizen Astrit Muzhaqi. The capital of the company at that time was estimated at 30,064,231 ALL or about 240 thousand euros.
However, one month later in October, Nazif Barjami regained possession of 100% of the company's shares and was also re-appointed as its general administrator.
A year later in December 2014, the company declared a capital of 264,111,831 ALL or 2,1 million euros, a seven-fold increase over the previous year.
According to the law, "conflict of interest" is the state of conflict between the public duty and the private interests of an official, in which he has private interests, direct or indirect, that affect, may affect or appear to affect the performance in a way unjustly of his public duties and responsibilities.
The "privileged" companies of Elbasan
According to the data in the bulletins of the Public Procurement Agency, the company that has benefited the highest amount through public contracts with the Municipality of Elbasan during the period 2012-2016 is Victoria Invest sh. p. k.
This company has won 14 tenders with an amount of 704,776,545.60 ALL or a little more than 5,6 million euros.
This company with administrators Fatmir Kuci and Vanina Latifi, according to the documents filed in the Center, has performed Services such as cleaning the city of Elbasan, reconstruction, systematization and asphalting of roads and nine of the tenders were won through the negotiation procedure.
Meanwhile, the second company appears Bajrami N. sh. pk, with contracts, which for four years amount to 372,006,014.00 ALL or about 3 million euros.
This company, with sole administrator Nazif Bajram, has performed Services such as reconstruction, asphalting, systemization, lighting of streets and squares, sewerage for waste water and even the purchase of construction materials for the Municipality of Elbasan.
Bajrami N. has received a total of 24 tenders in this period, where seven were awarded through the negotiated procedure and eight through the "request for proposal" procedure, according to which the contracting authority requests offers from a limited number of economic operators. Only in nine cases of concluding the contract was the procedure open, implying the announcement inviting any interested operator to apply.
The third company is Bikade sh. p. k., with the sole shareholder Alket Kasa and with an amount of 138,938,662.00 ALL or 1,1 million euros profited in four years.
This company turns out to be specialized in the purchase of food products for nurseries, gardens and city dormitories, benefiting from an extremely high number of negotiated contracts.
Bikade sh. p. k. has benefited from 59 tenders, of which 38 through the "negotiation, without prior publication" procedure.
From this analysis, it is concluded that out of 97 public contracts related to these companies, the authority of the procurement unit of the Municipality of Elbasan has used the negotiation procedure in 54 cases. In other words, about 56% of these tenders were awarded without competition.
Asked through a request for the right to information about the reasons why it had used negotiation too often to conclude high-value contracts, the Municipality of Elbasan emphasized that this was partly due to the blockages encountered by the municipality's budget as consequence of political debates in the Municipal Council.
Referring to the law on the management of the budget system in Albania, this municipality emphasizes that in the event of a blockage, the mayor of the local unit authorizes monthly expenditures up to 1/12 of the actual expenditures of the local budget in the previous budget year to ensure the continuation of the provision of goods and Services.
"Faced with such a situation... the type of procedure with negotiation without announcement was used", - it is emphasized in the response of the municipality.
But, despite this claim, this municipality has not provided any information about how many times in recent years the Municipal Council of Elbasan has blocked the budget of this local institution and how many months this block has lasted.
Likewise, predictable and long-term Services, such as cleaning the city or supplying food to nurseries and kindergartens, have been provided continuously through negotiation for years and were mostly agreed on a monthly basis. In this way, the Municipality has failed to find ways to make open competition and long-term procurement possible for mandatory public Services.
Aranita Brahaj, the head of a project for the transparency of public procurement in local government, told the Center that directly negotiated tenders "are problematic and often coincide with clientelistic procedures."
"When there is such a high ratio of tenders awarded in this way, then the procurement unit in that municipality has not performed properly", Brahaj emphasized.
According to her, it is a pity that the procurement units do not give the reasons why this way was chosen to distribute public funds.
"We, as a project, every time we are faced with such contracts, we underline them, so that local auditors, international auditors and journalists pay attention to these cases because they have a high risk of abuse and corruption", Brahaj emphasized. .
In fact, irregularities in the procurement process by the Municipality of Elbasan have also been encountered by the High State Control. KLSH during a 2016 audit report.
In this report, disciplinary measures are requested against 13 members of the Bid Evaluation Committee and specialists of the Procurement Unit for various violations of tender rules, causing financial damage to the Municipality of Elbasan.
The report emphasizes that during the years 2014-2015 the contracting authority in this municipality used the negotiation procedure without announcement 55 times, using more funds for public works and Services than would have been needed if the competition had been open.
"The contracting authority has paid more funds than in the open procedures or request for proposal, therefore the procurement procedures with negotiation are ineffective", - it is emphasized in the report, where the municipality is recommended to use this procedure "only for special cases" .
Meanwhile, Albania has been marked as a country which generally suffers from non-transparent public procurement procedures.
A report on public procurement in the Western Balkans published by the European Court of Auditors in January 2018 highlights the excessive use of public contracts, negotiated without prior public announcement, which avoids competition.
According to him, in Albania about 30 percent of all public procurements are done in this way, a very high figure compared to the Balkan region.
"This increases the risk that the national budget is not used in the most transparent way possible", - the report emphasizes.
As in other reports, the need to reduce this procedure to a minimum is emphasized, considering it an "antechamber" for abuse and corruption.
Author's note: Calculated amount does not include tenders received in cooperation.
The value is calculated without VAT, in some APP bulletins in some years it is with VAT, in others it is without VAT.
*Main photo: Elbasan (Wikipedia) and the coat of arms of Elbasan Municipality
