Over 800 emergency contracts were signed during 2020, only 37% served the struggle of pandemic

Diana Metushi-Krasnici project manager from the Kosovo Democratic Institute (KDI), said during the monitoring of these contracts, they have noticed price hikes.

According to her, at the time Kosovo was most in need of protection materials against Covid-19, institutions have stalled contracts.

“KDI has been monitoring the first emergency contracts and publication of emergency contracts that were made during March-April have the market for huge market price swells for protection supplies to the Comvi-19 pandemic. We have continued with further monitoring, we have identified a host of violations consistently, but also an unfair approach from institutions regarding emergency supplies. There have been cases when Kosovo has been in crisis for protection materials and tests for Ovidius, while the procedure has dragged on the complaints for months without taking appropriate treatment and leaving citizens to the mercy of fate or personal spending that is contrary to the law on management of pandemic, which the state is obliged to cover all expenses of patients”, she told EO.

It has also shown a concrete example of a contract signed by SKKKUK which violates specifics and specific terms of the contract.

We found that emergency contracts were contradictory. Where in one case ShKUK requires a product that is not part of the list of essential drugs, and on the other side cancels the tender because the offer comes with what it asked for a month ago and what is most painful that when it takes it to analyze what's been accepted from that emergency contract's contract specifications, the particular terms of the contract since the SKKUK has accepted a whole different bar from what has been ordered to be <ex1>, she added.

The researcher from KDI has also indicated that during 2020, Kosovo has signed over 800 emergency contracts, which total 65m euros.

Painful is the fact that only 37 percent of these contracts had to do with the pandemic.

“We have generally done an analysis and we have seen that in Kosovo during 2020, 800 contracts with emergency procedures worth approximately 65 million, which is a huge value of our budget. As you analyze the content of these emergency procurements, you see that only 37 percent of them are faced with pandemics, protection tools, medicine supplies or disinfectation and emergency packages, while the rest or 63 percent of them at 41 million of the value spent have gone to a variety of supplies that most of them have been scheduled for regular or regular-no emergency procedure<1.

Metushi-Krasniqi has said it is disturbing that even today, when the situation has normalised, it is still under emergency contracts which eliminates competition and increases the price of public spending.

Even today, it is disturbing to see many institutions, especially municipal levels, at a time when the government has already made a decision to facilitate measures, so we are not in extreme emergencies yet misappropriated by emergency procedures that eliminate competition, increase the price of public spending, and then it risks managing the” contract.

And researcher for the Progress Initiative (INPO), Bearing has said in an interview for Online Economics that our institutions by billing the emergency to pandemic, I'm signing quick contracts, thus violating free market competition.

It is true that, especially last year, all contracting authorities have faced unusual situations, and as a result, the Regulatory Commission has informed authorities that they have the option to use negotiated procedures without publishing contract reporting and that these procedures are urgent and that the way to signing the contract is much faster. The law says in order that these procedures should be used only in cases of extreme emergencies, what we see today's long pandemic, we see this procedure has been misused. By affording urgency with the pandemic, we continue to see that authority continues to use this procedure. This procedure undermines free market competition”, it has indicated.

And Arifi has also said that from the monitoring they are conducting, they have come to a conclusion that every time they proceed with these kind of contracts, it is certain that the institutions receive at a price more expensive than market.

The procedure to negotiate without publication is the procedure within itself, where the vulnerability of competition lies in the fact that these contracts can be discussed with only one economic operator. While in open procedure, economic operators can indiscriminately apply and, of course, the price and other conditions are much more convenient. From the systematic monitoring that our organization is doing in the field of public procurement, we see that every time this procedure is used by authorities, one thing is certain they will receive a price more expensive than the market price”, it has ended for EO.