Customs lacks accreditation, but continues to control the quality of derivatives

This is being seen as illegal, as administrative guidance for the quality of liquid oil fuels at Article 20, points 5 stipulates that the declaration of transparency should be based on the report of testing liquid fuel done in the accredited laboratory.

The liquid oil bonds produced abroad must be accompanied by the declaration of conformity issued by the producer/processor. The reform declaration should be based on the report of testing liquid oil fuel made in the Accredited Lab on Standard E. ISO/ IEC 17025 with accredited areas covering the requirements of this Administrative Guide or on the basis of the certificate issued by the Corps for assessing the conformity and accredited according to the requirements of the E Standard ISO/ IEC 17020, type A”, says at Article 5 of the context declaration, quality statement and the method of conforming assessment”, the administrative directive says.

The compensation for controlling Kosovo Customs's oil quality laboratory was received by the Ministry of Trade and Industry in April 2015, when former Minister Hykmete Bajrami led the post.

This minister has indicated that after the end of the accreditation on April 29th of this year, Dogan has not submitted a request for reaccreditment.

“The customs laboratory for testing oil and its derivatives with the aim of classifying their tariffs under the Kosovo Customs has been accredited for the first time in 2015, for the area of accreditment of oil and its derivatives for the purpose of classification of their tariffs and not for quality of derivatives. The appointment of the laboratory in question expired with the date 29.04.2019 and Customs refused to accept the request for re-addiction of the field or field expansion, despite MTI's announcement”, the MTI media office says in response.

As Kosovo Customs spokesman Adriatic Stavileci tells Kosova Preis that they are in the process of re-registering.

And we can't actually say that Customs has no accreditation, Customs Lab is an accredited laboratory, but actually the certificate of accreditation has ended with a certain date, now we're in the process of reaccrediting. So, we can't say it's a lab without any credit. However, I have to go back to the beginning of the theme, Customs oil analysis in terms of quality has not chosen to take it on its own, oil tests have been delegated to him as competence exactly from the Ministry of Trade and Industry, which, through a instruction, has removed competence from the inspection troops and placed it at Dogan”, he says.

Continued control of the oil quality after accreditation expired is a criminal offence, says Jakup Gashi, owner of the lab “Sierra-lab”, which is accredited for controlling the quality of oil from MTI and the DPA of the Republic of Albania.

He says that even the control Dogana made is a fraud, since Dogana has been credited with only three methods, while administrative guidelines require 19 methods for oil control.

This has even initially been accredited for taxing goods, meaning Customs responsibility is the collection of bowls is a collection tax, not a quality verification. Since the beginning of Kosovo, Dogana's laboratory has been accredited for three methods until it is required with administrative guidelines of 19 methods. This was a simulation, or a consumer fraud, with citizens, that there was no control. However, even now that four months or five have expired with accreditation is a criminal offense, with administrative guidelines required to be accredited, while for us independent troops authorised by the MTI are required to have accredition”, he says.

Despite having passed the accreditation in April, Kosovo's Customs has announced tenders for supplies for the appointment of the Ottoman and Cetanic number.

This tender according to Gashi is illegal and a fraud, as in his opinion Customs does not need such equipment.

This is the same thing as it took responsibility for quality control, so the moment Government is on the run, such decisions are made. Before the end of the former government, even this competence has been passed to Customs, which was not based on law, has been illegal and today there is still work without legal grounds. Even now Customs's move to announce tenders to buy equipment is illegal, it is fraud, it is budget loss, the outgoing government is exploited. I don't know what Customs needs when Customs is a tax collector, neither of those devices has anything to do with tarifim, it's quality”, he says.

To that end, there is a response by Kosovo Customs spokesman Adriatic Stavileci, who says it is no one's competence to show Customs what it should buy and what it does not.

It's not competence... To teach us what we should buy, what equipment we should buy, and what we should not buy. Currently they are private companies that have private interests, Dogana is a public institution that protects the public interests of this country”, he says.

Stavileci has suggested that Kosovo Customs has not chosen to be the competent authority for testing, but has delegated competencies from the MTI.