Kosovo Democratic Institute (KDI), while analyzing the law on Public Procurement and disqualification practices of economic operators from the process of public procurement, has found that Procurement Review Body is pardoning the irresponsible economic operators when it comes to criminal offences of falsified documents.

Findings from this analysis were made public during a media conference today, where Diana Metushi-Krasniqi from KDI, emphasized that ‘’ Law on Public Procurement in Kosovo, article 99 paragraph 2 foresees disqualification of economic operators for 12 months if it is proved that they offered untrue or false documents during the process of public procurement.

KDI observations show that economic operators who bid while presenting counterfeit documents, action which is classified as a criminal offence by the Criminal code of Kosovo, are sentenced from Procurement Review Body with minimal punishments such as: disqualification from the process of public procurement for 12 months, punishment this known as the black list of economic operators.

Although the PRB has found falsification, it has never informed the State Prosecutor or has filed a criminal charge for fraud and forgery, as required by the Criminal Code of Kosovo. This decision-making approach has made the Black List of Economic Operators remain vacant.

“If the PRB were to send reports of their findings to the State Prosecution or to the Police, then the falsification and fraud of the economic operators would be judged, which would affect their discipline in a fair tendering process,” he said Metushi Krasniqi.

According to law on public procurement, if a company, owner, leader, manager or director are found guilty of criminal or civil offence, including corruption, money laundering, bribes and other acts prohibited by law then the economic operator will be disqualified for 10 years from public procurement processes.

Elira Tahiri further emphasized that “the decisions that PRB has issued for disqualification of economic operators during the period 2015-2018 are related to falsification of manufacturer’s authorizations, forgery of catalogs, forgery of ISO certificate, falsification of certification of the Tax Administration of Kosovo, falsification of the seal and text of the Notary, falsification of diplomas, legalization of false content, etc., all of these criminal offenses. In five cases, operators were disqualified for participation in tendering processes for 6 months, and in three cases the penalties are 12 months only.

Starting from these findings, Elira Tahiri from KDI requested cooperation and immediate commitment of Prosecutor and Procurement Review Body to address these cases, while from the Public Procurement Regulatory Commission KDI requested the initiation of procedures for amending the law on public procurement.

In this case, KDI recommends that economic operators disqualified by the PRB for the criminal verdicts of filing false data or forged documents, should be included in the Black List of economic operators up to the decision of the competent court.