Two years ago, the government uses cars to rent even higher costs than the sale price

In March 2017 the Kosovo government decided to rent cars for all institutional segments and asked the Central Public Procurement Agency to apply a centralised contract for 452 cars for five and a half years, worth about 7m euros, the Voice of America writes.

Based on documents of the contracting process, the value of the car rent exceeds the purchase price, raising doubts about the tender and spurred the launch of an investigation into the prosecutor.

In October 2017 The Procure Central Agency awarded a tender to the company “Automita” for the rental of 373 vehicles.

Of these, with a contract and two annexes signed within a year, the government contracted 204 Renault Megane-type cars at the price of 347 euros per month and 169 cars of the type Dacia Sandero at a monthly rent price of 247 euros. The price for both parts was 4. 380 614 euro.

In December 2017 and March 2018, two contracts were added and an annex contract with the company “Mercom”. In three cases 79 Peweot Allure 508 cars were taken with a monthly rent of 497 euros and the total contract value was 2. 5,000, 00 million euros.

All contracts have been linked for a 66-month deadline, while based on the Law for Public Procurement in Kosovo such contracts are allowed for only 36 months.

Bexhet Rukiqi chief of the Central Public Procurement Agency says the law does not include time limits for these types of open contracts.

There is an open procedure in this case. This is not a framework agreement or framework contract this is an open procedure. It's not overcoming. Nowhere is “prohibited, Rukiqi said.

But this tender file itself is said to be a framework contract, and the Procure Law contracts allow contracts of up to three years.

This contract is among the framework contracts confirmed by the National Auditing Office.

The head of the Auditor's Office, Besnik Osmani, explains to the Voice of America about the violations observed since the beginning of the audit.

There wasn't an exact analysis. No information on the needs of institutions has been collected, the amount needed to then have information and to initiate procurement procedures. This distribution has caused a gap between the needs of the institution and the level of the amount contracted”, Osmani said.

The contracting authority, in this case the Kosovo government, had not made an analysis of prices and institutional needs. This, according to Osmani, is another violation that has been noted in this tender.

“has lacked an administrative guide that creates the link between users and contractor. We have recommended that the Government should issue an administrative directive that envisions the rights and obligations of institutions using these cars past AQP”, he added.

The lack of a market price analysis and institutions' needs has cost the state more than if purchased in this case the value of rent of a vehicle for 5 and a half years.

For a Dacio Sandero car, which at the market costs 11,000 euros has been paid rent of 16,302,00 euros, for the type Renault Megan, which costs about 16,190 euros, is paid 22.902. While for a Peugeot 508, whose market value at the time was about 26 thousand euros, the government has paid 32802 euros.

In both cases in demand, technical specification had adapted to the traits of certain producers, in this case the companies they have acquired.

The two winning companies, Automita and Mercom, have also been contacted about the contracts, but both have refused to talk about the Voice of America about the contracts they won with the Kosovo government.

Rukiqi, however, says the contract is beneficial compared to earlier car expenses. He cites cases where audits have used car spending abuses where a litre of oil was billed to up to 80 euros.

This practice has resulted in much more efficient and much more economic than buying vehicles. Absolutely very reasonable is the price, the price is very favourable”, Rukiqi said.

The report by the National Audition Office, according to Osman, will soon issue whether the contract was favourable to the state.

This contract has already become an investigation into the prosecutor, and Rukiqi confirms that two agency officials he runs have been interviewed in this tender. Case prosecutor Naim Abazi and the Kosovo Special Prosecutor's Office have not provided clarification about this investigation, saying they do not comment on the cases that are under way.

International reports link Kosovo in the midst of countries where corruption remainsal.

Labinot Lepostica, co-ordinator of the Judiciary Monitoring Team in the Balkan Network for Investigative Journalist (BIRN), says prosecutors in Kosovo are failing to draft the qualitative act of corruption.

“The cases of corruption are not being investigated, there is no financial investigation of them, what constitutes a kind of absurdity, because the damage caused by a criminal offence and corruption is not being correctly stated. If the damage is not correctly identified as clear, how can there be a qualitative investigation of corruption and expect this investigation will convince a judge to declare a condemned indictment”, Lepostica said.

The head of the Anti-Corruption Agency, Shaip Havolli, an independent body that investigates corruption cases, explains there is a high degree of impunity of corruption and penalty of high profile corruption is drowning in the influence of politics in the judiciary.

For years, progress has been very small in relation to fighting corruption and mainly in terms of high profile. We have repeatedly had 37 or 40 and more cases where many have been targeted and the results have not been optimistic about the sentence. At times, even senior officials have been released from the indictment”, Havolli said.

According to the auditing office, contracts for rental cars have increased the number of users of official cars, and in many cases government-owned cars remain in competition.