They do poor work and still win tenders

But, many of these contracts do not have a real management and, as a consequence, companies are paid despite their poor performance, says Diana Metush-Krasniqi of the Kosovo Democratic Institute.

According to her, shortages in the law for real management of contracts cause major damage to Kosovo's budget.

It's the share of contract management that we've lost 53m euros to Bechtel Enka. It's just the part of the contract management that we haven't completed in 10 years with Mitrovica and Pec. It's just the bad management of the contracts that our schools are still degraded without being properly inaugurated, and that asphalt still breaks down without being fixed. It's the most critical part that unfortunately I don't know if it was a deliberate or intentional launch. It's left out of the legal regulation of how it has to be supervised to provide” qualities, Metushi-Krasniqi said.

Diana Metushi-Krasnici says the issue of contract management would have to be addressed in the legal changes expected to take place, as there are currently institutions that have convicted or indicted companies, and despite that, the same have been awarded a tender again.

“We also have several municipalities that have filed charges against economic operators for failing to meet the terms of the contract, but, unfortunately, we have the case of the Obilic municipality that has convicted the company, and after the conviction it has awarded the same company contract to do other”, Metushi-Krasanqi said.

In 2017, the Kosovo Democratic Institute had done a research in which it had resulted that contracts were not respected in some cases and Kosovo's budget was damaged, writes rel.

One of the cases of poor contract management had been recorded in the construction of Business Park in the Middle Korean village of Drenas municipality, where since the start of the park's construction only for the construction, management and maintenance of the sewage plant had been linked to four contracts over the period of 6-7 years but has not yet become the sanction of all problems.

Problems in contract management and production, according to the report, had been in building schools, asphalting roads, and sports gyms. All of this had resulted at additional costs, in sanimation or even completion of the works.

In addition to problems in contract management, political influence remains a crucial problem in the race to win tenders, says the director of the American Oda in Kosovo, Arian Zeka.

“should take all necessary actions to bring the quality of the tasks, products or services whatever they offer at the required level. We as the American Ode have requested that there be a black list of companies that do not meet the tender criteria and, of course, on that list, should have access to all prosecutorial organs in Kosovo and serve as the dissultation for future tender procedures”, Zeka said.

This year, the Kosovo government paid an additional 53m euros for the Bechtel-Enka company, which built the “Arba Xhaferi”.

Reasoning on the decision to allocate 53m euros, Transport Minister Pal Lekaj said the past government was to blame, as according to him from 2014 to 2017, Bechtel-Enkas had failed to pay the annual bills in order and the completion deadline was delayed.