Transparency within the Ministry of Health is minimal and has not changed through years, in terms of public procurement. Findings on contracts show a very limited budget to properly address the necessities of patients in Kosovo- stated the latest report of KDI today.

The report analyses the implementation of public procurement legislation, by examining contracts of the Ministry of Health, particularly cytostatic supplies, consumable and anti-infective materials, all analyzed at different stages.  Five procurement phases in total were analyzed in order to come up with such findings.

Diana Metushi-Krasniqi, author of this report, stated that “this analysis reflects the lack of transparency as one of the key issues of the Ministry of Health. The latter has justified such transparency deficiencies, supposedly due to a lack of time and capacities. Hence, the title of this report is “Virus Transparentitis”

From the analysis of this report, it has been concluded that the main concerns related to procurement within the MoH, deal with extremely high prices of products, in addition to the ministry’s budget. The cost of Kosovo’s expenditures per capita for 2015 was 110.00 USD, which is the lowest in the region.
Kosovo spends five times less than Albania in public health, seven times less than Macedonia and nine times less than Montenegro, Bosnia and Hercegovina and Turkey. This results in a non-fulfillment of essential necessities.

Purchase of consumable materials such as sterile gauze, gloves and scrubs was followed by claims of various irregularities. The poor quality of these materials is the result of a non-updated list of essential drugs, a list which also does not specify quality requirements. This results in the purchase of low quality products.

 

In order to improve this situation, KDI has provided a number of recommendations which deal and address such immediate requirements such as updating the list of essential drugs; improving procurement planning; creating an electronic system of registration and records of patients and identifying the consumer; analyzing products and the application procedures for negotiations of their purchase; as well as the need for a market analysis in order to get a rough overview with regard to the offer that certain companies for certain products might have, as well as to prevent price fixing.