Author: Klevis Paloka
How do police body cameras work, the Ministry of the Interior asked almost five years ago, presenting the device as the last word of law enforcement. The device was considered capable of recording, with high quality up to eight hours maximum, had an SOS emergency button and not only with a 110-degree viewing angle, but easily mounted on the belt, chest and shoulder. It also had to be water and weather resistant, have a battery backup and display GPS coordinates. But often the policemen returned to the department with the statement "the camera is out of battery", "The camera was damaged by the rain". As it was planned that the body cameras would be carried especially by the policemen of the "Shqiponja" Forces, after the murder of Klodian Rasha it was discovered that none of the policemen of this sector had a functional camera or even installed in their uniform. An investigation launched by the SCBA, did not shed light on the problem of the use of the apparatus, for which no official voice argues what percentage of these cameras are in use, how many of them are out of order and what are the costs for their maintenance .
Unofficially, people within the police feel freer to speak and tell the truth. “ For 3-4 months now, we have not used body cameras during our duty, when we control the area that our police station has to patrol in Tirana ,” says a police officer from Police Station No. 3 in Tirana, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The police officer says that the entire police station no longer has body cameras for patrolling. " They took them away from our police station about 3-4 months ago, and they didn't give us any reason why this happened, but when I communicated with my colleagues, the same thing happened to them too ," the police officer concludes.
But when did body cameras go live?
Body cameras for police officers were put into operation in February 2016, and at that time they were described both by the then interior minister, Saimir Tahiri, and also by the prime minister, Edi Rama, as a radical transformation of the relationship between the police and citizens. .
In his speech during the presentation of these body cameras for police officers, Prime Minister Edi Rama described it as an irreplaceable opportunity for complete transparency in all the activities of law enforcement.
" This technological revolution program in the State Police is an irreplaceable opportunity to achieve complete transparency in all the activities of our law enforcement agencies. Transparency enables leaders, enables employees, enables citizens, enables communities, enables partners to read every aspect of this activity and confronts the State Police with the opportunity to realize the great ambition every day, to be a police force that is no different from the police forces of the European Union ", said Prime Minister Rama.
While the interior minister of that time, Saimir Tahiri, described these cameras as the most powerful instrument against corruption.
" It is the most powerful anti-corruption instrument and I am very proud that the Albanian Police is the first in the Balkans to apply this instrument, putting us before responsibility and obligation by doing much more to increase the standard of security, to fight informality, illegality, criminality and above all to build solid and constant trust of citizens in the State Police. We believe that technology and innovation are the best ways to modernize the State Police, to increase the standard of its service, to increase the citizen's guarantee towards State Police employees, to have police officers who do not abuse their duty, police officers worthy of gaining the trust of citizens ", declared former Minister Tahiri.
So even though more than 5 years have passed, the State Police continues not to provide information about the tender developed for the purchase of these body cameras.
" The tender for body cameras for Police officers was developed by the former Directorate of Centralized Procurement at the Ministry of Interior and falls into the "Classified" category , " the official response of the State Police states.
But the affair in this tender was discovered through a detailed audit by the Supreme State Audit Office , which touched on one by one the violations that, according to the audit, had been committed for this tender.
During the audit, KLSH brought to light the fact that at the beginning it was said that the tender procedure was done in violation of the order of the minister of the interior.
" In the tender procedure with the object "Multifunctional body camera system for State Police patrols" worth about 541 million lek, it was found that the procedure was classified "secret" at the security level "Restricted", contrary to the requirements of the Order of the Minister of Internal Affairs no. 459, dated 26.8.2015 and Law 6943, dated 20.11.2016, as amended. The justification used for this classification is because "The film material (Audio/video) is a product that is produced after the end of the tender procedure and is judged to have served as an artifice to avoid open competition and to discriminate against the participation of other economic operators in this procurement ", is quoted in the SAI document.
Negative effects on the financial bill
Another finding of the HSC is related to the impact on the state budget.
" In the implementation of this procedure, irregularities and deficiencies were found associated with negative financial effects for the State Budget, which reach a minimum of 189 million lek. This negative effect results in the calculation of the limit fund, from the comparison of the prices offered by domestic economic operators and the prices offered/combined by domestic economic operators with the published international prices. The working group established by the Contracting Authority has not documented the references that served to calculate the full value of the project (including the limit fund), the causes of the change, from the value of 838,005,339 lek, to the final value of the project of 540,533,139 lek, in violation of Article 59/2 "Calculation of the limit value of the contract" of the Decision of the Council of Ministers No. 914, dated 29.12.2014 "On public procurement rules" as amended, and specifically with the requirements and "the criteria set for applying with projects to the Regional Development Committee ", explains the SAI
Seven times saltier price
But the most important finding of this report was the fact that the prices used by the contracting authority were up to 7 times higher than the published international prices and that even though the tender included the item "maintenance", the winning operator had no opportunity to perform this voice.
" From a test of published international prices as well as the offers received from well-known operators of the domestic market for certain components of this system, it was found that the prices used by the Contracting Authority have resulted up to 7 times higher than the published international prices, reflecting an increase in the limit fund in the amount of 189,155,670 lek. The estimate of the tender "Multifunctional body camera system for State Police patrols" also includes the item "Maintenance" worth about 38,000 thousand lek per year. Meanwhile, it was found that the winning economic operator is not able to perform the item "Maintenance", since in the documentation submitted by it, there is no cooperation agreement, manufacturer authorization, or/and qualifications and training with the entity "SI", from which it purchased the "Multifunctional Cameras". Based on this fact, the high value of the "maintenance" service, the continuity of the performance of this service, the fact "Given that the Contracting Authority has around 90 IT employees in its organic structure, the transfer of the maintenance service outside the institution for three years at a cost of 114 million lekë reflects inefficiency in the use of human and financial resources ," the audit on the dubious tender denounces.
A denunciation that ended up in SPAK
These findings and financial analyzes of KLSH, ended up in the form of a criminal complaint against the officials who were involved and signed the tender.
"On the irregularities found in the tender procedure with the object "Multifunctional system of body cameras for State Police patrols", the Supreme State Control with letter no. 871/13 dated 10.01.2017, submitted to the General Prosecutor a criminal complaint against 7 employees of the State Police Directorate, of which 4 AMSR employees, D. GJ. and F. Sh., in the capacity of the group for the drafting of the terms of reference, the calculation of the limit fund and at the same time members of the procurement unit, while 3 employees ED, EK and SH, in the capacity of members of the bid evaluation commission, for consumption of the figure of the criminal offense "Violation of the equality of participants in public tenders or auctions", provided by article 258 of the Criminal Code".
But even though almost 4 years have passed, there is still no investigative result for this criminal report made by the HCLA. Unofficial sources show that this criminal complaint was first passed to the Prosecutor's Office of Tirana. While the latter at the end of December 2020 announced its lack of competence and passed the investigative dossier to the SPAK Special Prosecutor's Office, which for reasons of investigative secrecy does not disclose the course of the case.
