Interior Ministry cancels heating system tender

The violations discovered by the Procurement Lawyer and published one day ago by “Shqip” newspaper have caused the reaction of the Interior Ministry, which clarifies that the tender has had complaints, but the agreement with the declared winner has not been signed, since the government decision halted all procedures after August 1st. The Ministry doesn’t comment on the violations noted by the Lawyer, but on the other hand, they admit that there have been complaints.

 “As for the article ‘700.000 USD tender, Interior Ministry favored a company’, published on the “Shqip” newspaper on 12 September 2011, the Interior Ministry declares that for this tender have been previously qualified three offers”, the Ministry clarifies, adding that the Procurement Lawyer started the administrative investigation after the complaint of a bidder, an investigation for which they took the necessary clarifications by the Development Directory of Concentrated Procurements.

“These clarifications were given to the Agency of Public Procurements for assessing the pretenses of the Ombudsman. On 10 August 2011, based on the Council of Ministers decision no. 472 ‘For regulating the budget funds of 2011’, this tender is cancelled. As consequence, there is no declared winner for the tender ‘Supplying fuels for heating systems’”, held on 06 July 2011.

Based on the created situation, the state risks to work without heating systems.

700.000 USD tender, Interior Ministry favored a company

The state administration tenders for vehicle gas has spurred controversy from competent institutions due to the specifics that the product presents, especially for the profit rate.

 According to “Shqip”, a recent administrative investigation started by the Procurements Lawyer, an institution specialized in the tenders and consultation for the subjects and administrations discovered an abusive scheme for a private company declared winner. The investigation started after two oil companies complained after participating in the tender “Supplying fuel for heating system”, held by the Interior Ministry on July 6th with a total value of 700.000 USD, in the department of Concentrated Procurements for the Administration. After collecting the facts, the Procurement Lawyer started the investigation on July 18th, the results of which were public by the end of August.

The investigation brought to light the violations made by the Ministry by declaring as winner a private company. The tender of the Interior Ministry, which was held in May, had failed due to the lack of competition. The order of Prime Minister Berisha for concluding the contracts before August 1st has obliged the companies to find a winner for the tender even though there was only one competitor. Two companies that had joined assets for participating in this tender complained at the lawyer with the pretense that their disqualification was unjust.

After collecting the evidence, the contracting authority, the “Interior Ministry”, in its special criteria for the disqualification of the tender documents has asked a verification from the tax authorities for the average yearly revenues for the last two years (2009-2010), which should be in the value of the limit fund that was offered. “If the economic operators will offer special lots, the average income of the last two years must be in the limit fund of the lot, or to the value of the limit funds of the lot offered”, was one of the criteria in this tender. The investigations show that both companies did not fulfill the conditions of the average revenues, as verified by the tax office.

For having a clearer idea, the Procurements Lawyer started reviewing the tender case of all participating companies, which were 11 in total. By their union were created 7 bids. The Lawyer learned by reviewing the documents that all companies, excluding the one that was declared winner by the ministry, did not have all documentation, such as verifications, licenses, taxes, fines. This shows that the ministry had made a just disqualification of the other companies, but it had declared winner the only remaining company, when the procedure should had been cancelled.

The Procurement lawyer declared that in the tender remained only one company and there was no competition. The tender should have been repeated, valued at least with three bids or more.

“The Interior Ministry, during the evaluations of the bids, has violated the Decision of the Council of Ministers Nr.1, dated 10.01.2007, “For the approval of the Rules of Public Procurement”, amended, and Law no. 9643, “For the Public Procurement”, amended, after qualifying companies that do not fulfill the qualifying criteria”, was the conclusion of the Procurements Lawyer, a structure directly depended from the Prime Minister Berisha. 

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