Intriguing spending at the Ministry of Health, even though Arben Vitita is fluent

The newspaper Blic has secured several documents in which there has been allegedly misuse of official office, and with this case the Kosovo budget has also been damaged.

All because the drugs and medical equipment that were purchased by the Ministry of Health at this time the pandemic was bought at a much higher price, as well as economic operators were selected through negotiated emergency procedure.

But there is more to doubt.
Although the University Clinical Centre of Kosovo ( QKUK ) has contracts with several companies offering these drugs and equipment, MSH officials have bought medicines and medical equipment at a price of far more expensive than that the pharmaceutical companies that contract with the CKUK.

Based on these documents owned by the newspaper Blic, MS has acquired many times the most expensive products such as Vancomycin 500 mg, even though for this product pharmaceutical company “Dreni Farm” has currency contracts by October of this year.

This drug was bought at a price of 1.48 cents, while the company with the contract in effect had offered it 1.08 cents.

Another product allegedly bought at the highest price is metamilosis 500 mg where MS has contracted at 2.40 euros, while its market price is 0.95 cents.

The same was done with the 1000 mg sol paracetamol, where MU allegedly bought at 2.16 euros at the price of the same, while the same made 0.95 cents in the market.

MS has been operating on the purchase of equipment for combating choreography at very high prices for masks as well.

For example, MS has bought surgical masks at 0.056 cents while a pharmaceutical company has the currency contract with QK, which the mask price this company had offered at 0.016 cents.

The Ministry of Health has also bought sterile bail at the price of “hava” in various amounts, such as 0.44 cents, 0.48 cents and 0.52 cents, since the company that has the contract in power with the University Clinical Centre of Kosovo had offered it 0.02 cents, 0.02 and 0.018 cents.

Even such high-priced purchases and allegations of misuse of official position and damage to the amount of millions of Kosovo budgets, It is suspected that it has done for other products and negotiated procedures (See documents within the text)

The newspaper Blic has asked health ministry officials why this has happened, but they have had an interesting answer.

Initially, members of the Parliamentary Commission for Health and later have said they have announced economic crimes within the Kosovo police.

In a response to Blic the MSH media office has said the KCPP has created reliefs for cutting supply procedures due to public health emergency.

According to them, the MS has asked institutions to present their needs and to be supplied through the purchases that the MSh made, since for Covid-19, the separate funds for this pandemic are required to be centralised.

“MS has announced the Economic Crimes Unit and the Kosovar Authority of Competition and has extended a written invitation since March 10th 2020 to come and investigate these price hikes from economic operators, despite the fact that after the start of the pandemic, prices of medical products have marked rise everywhere in the pharmaceutical and domestic market”, the MSH response reported.

According to officials of this ministry, the MSH has not signed any contracts exceeding the projected value, based on reference market prices, which the Commission has collected for establishing the price of medicines, taking into consideration the prices of some countries in the region and beyond. In each contract according to them, the winner has been declared responsible company at the lowest price offered.

They say, however, that in the MSH you don't know if there were legitimate violations of the case in buying medicine and medical equipment, but they appreciate there's someone else I can prove I can prove it.

“MS, it's clear that the way to conclude whether there were violations or not are institutions that oversee public procurement and investigative institutions, but cannot stop the accusations of individuals who have long since the pandemic alone had the damage to efforts to manage the situation well, serving with constant slander”, say in the MSH.

All in the official end of the Ministry of Health say they are willing to offer access to procurement files for any spirit medium or other party that is interested in seeing the offers.

This is not the first time that health ministry officials are allegedly misusing the official position and allegations of damage to the Kosovo Republic budget in the media.

These are the currency contracts that the pharmaceutical companies have with the QKUK, for products and medical materials, and for which the Health Minister announced tender:

Meanwhile, these are the new contracts the Health Ministry has linked, despite the contract's currency and lower prices: