KDI has found that the payment of the premium (profit) for supply has doubled from the same supplier when the contract was concluded with the same agency. This could cost the state budget an additional 371 thousands Euro. These findings were presented at a press conference of KDI, through the report “Fuel supply: Monopoly and loss of public funds”.
This report comes as continuation of previous monitoring of public procurement in the Central Procurement Agency (CPA), in order to analyze the tendering procedures and contract awards, the monitoring of the contract implementation and the addressing of potential findings.
The use of centralized procurement although it could be damaging to competition, according to KDI, is acceptable due to savings and better management of public money, which translates into better welfare for citizens.
This happened with the first contract signed by the CPA with the economic operator HIB Petrol. According to experts in this field, the savings from centralized procurement amounts to 700.000 to 900.000 Euro. These findings were presented by KDI in December 2015 in the report “Public Money or Competition?”
However, the second contract with HIB Petrol and CPA, for 80 contracting authorities is for 371 thousand euros more expensive than the first contract, in case of a comparison of the same fuel quantity.
Artan Canhasi, Program Manager for Transparency and Anti-Corruption at KDI, stated that in this case, in order to save the public funds, CPA within the current legal provisions it had to cancel the tendering process and re-tender the services for fuel supply for 80 contracting authorities.
The research has been supported by the UK Embassy in Kosovo.