Today, the “Transparency Index in Public Procurement” was presented. The analysis addresses and outlines transparency in five pillars through measurement of 23 indicators. The scope of the analysis includes 19 ministries as well as the Office of the Prime Minister.  

During last year KDI measured transparency in public procurement in two levels of the power, municipalities and the government of Kosovo. “The lack of transparency at Kosovo’s institutions in the area of public procurement negatively affects Kosovo businesses and economic development of the country”, said Artan Canhasi, a programme manager at KDI. He noted that there are two (2) types of businesses in Kosovo: those that don’t know what the government will buy, what amounts and when, and those who obtain this information from the inside in exchange of favours, and then they use the information as an advantage in their bidding.

“The Government of Kosovo in 2014 demonstrated low levels of transparency in public procurement. This is because citizens, media, and businesses were not provided with many documents that are essential in public procurement”, said Isuf Zejna from KDI. The findings of the Index indicate that Kosovo’s institutions do not reflect transparency in their websites; many critical documents of the ministries such as budget, financial reports, procurement plans, and tender and auction announcements are missing. As part of the report, there was a test of the access to official information. Out of 20 institutions where testing was done, nine (9) responded within the legal deadlines, nine (9) were late from one (1) to 30 days. What is worse, the Ministry of Infrastructure (MI) and the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology (MEST) did not provide access to information. KDI did not manage to obtain a response for more than two (2) months, and these two ministries did not agree to provide official information about procurement issues. Such cases highlight the need to adapt the current legal basis to demand for higher transparency in public procurement.

Ilaz Duli from the Public Procurement Regulatory Committee (PPRC) stated that a large number of documents on public procurement may be found on the webpage of the institution. But he agreed that transparency in the field is very low. He promised that the situation will improve upon application of electronic procurement.

Besnik Bislimi from the Public Finances Supervision Committee PFSC) stated that the civil society in Kosovo may assist in two (2) ways the Assembly Committee for Public Finances Supervision. First, by providing reports and roundtables with factual findings on situation of management of public finances or transparency; and second, by providing recommendations how to improve the system. He also noted that public procurement in Kosovo has very little transparency and that there is a need that the Committee go beyond the reports of the General Auditor Office (GAO) and address findings of monitoring organisations.

Fidan Kalaja from FOL Movement stated that the genesis of the lack of transparency in public procurement is corruption. This is because institutions deliberately did not apply norms that would affect the increase of transparency in the sector. He also added that corruption in procurement does not come only from public procurement officers in institutions, but often its source is political level that influences public procurement.

Participants in the debate raised the need to improve the legal basis and implementation of electronic procurement, as a mechanism to increase transparency in public procurement. The collisions among applicable laws in Kosovo on the issue of publication of official information and documents was also discussed. Majlinda Sinani-Lulaj from the Office of Ombudsperson stated that the Law on Access to Documents will start to be amended in order there is a fairer address of some issues that have limited the right of citizens to be informed during recent years. This happened due to arbitrary interpretation of the Law by some officials of institutions or lack of proper address of responsibility for non-provision of information.

A general conclusion of the debate was that measurement of transparency in public procurement is a necessity and it should continue since it is a good way to assess is institutions are improving their performance with regard to public information or vice versa. Procurement Regulatory Committee was asked to consider possibilities for adopting a special regulation in the field of transparency for procurement to force institutions to publish data on tenders.

 

Kosovo Democratic Institute (KDI)/Transparency International Kosova (TIK) held this roundtable today as part of the “Transparency and Accountability in Public Procurement at Local Level” Project, which is supported by UK Embassy in Prishtina.