The analysis report “The road to money” talks about monitoring of procurement activities within the Ministry of Infrastructure with main focus on the tendering process for summer and winter maintenance of national and regional roads, namely the five stages of procurement, including preparation of specifications, evaluation and implementation of the contract.

The analysis highlighted a number of irregularities, the avoidance of which would result in savings of 1.9million Euros of the budget.

Artan Canhasi from KDI, stated that there were significant improvements with regard to transparency in the Ministry of Infrastructure, compared to 2013, when KDI did not have access to public documents.

“The road to money” is associated with what is now not only perception, but also a fact and a national and international public opinion that Kosovo’s infrastructure has been one of the most essential necessity of Kosovo, towards which it has been invested the most from the state’s budget. “The road to money” has been considered as an opportunity for embezzlement and abuse of public funds, since there have been many allegations for corruption. “Therefore, since road infrastructure has been a priority in governing programs, we as taxpayers cannot tolerate any mismanagement or further waste of money” said Ismet Kryeziu, Executive Director at KDI.

“During the initial phase of the project, there were commitment statements from the Ministry of Infrastructure, Ministry of Health and Central Procurement Agency (CPA). This situation can be improved when there is political will. A good will can also be converted into savings which may increase the welfare of citizens” stated Ruairi O’Connell, the British Ambassador in Kosovo.

On the other hand, Lutfi Zharku, Minister of Infrastructure, said that “we are aware that transparency in procurement is quite critical. The enormous budget costs and expenditures in this area, prove the necessity for the improvement of this field, while transparency in these transactions would increase citizens’ confidence in the government”.

Corruption allegations and lack of political will in the public procurement system are questionable today, as we have not yet chosen a specific individual to lead the PRB. The failure of this choice clearly proves intervention and political bargains to dominate the independent institutions.

In addition, Safet Hoxha, head of the PPRC, said that KDI through its contribution and its research is helping institutions on their work. It has perfected the process of monitoring and we see KDI as a partner. In this regard, I invite the media to become a part of this partnership, as this is a matter of citizens’ tax expenditures.

KDI also provided a number of recommendations in order to improve procurement in the Ministry of Infrastructure, and asked that in the future: field inspection should be done during the evaluation of the contract, and not after its signing; the process of procurement should start immediately upon the approval of the budget; there should not be additional services allowed, which exceed the contracted value; and the PPRC should increase monitoring for major contracts.

 

Within this project, KDI will also release very soon another detailed report on the procurement activities of CPA, as well as publish a report for the Ministry of Health.