Addressing Issues and Recommendations related to the Emergency Procurement and Open Contracting in Kosovo
When addressing the issues related to the monitoring process conducted by Open Data Kosovo in terms of the Emergency Procurement and Open Contracting in Kosovo there are two areas which are pointed out. The first area (1) consists of the difficulties faced during the process of the data extraction and monitoring of such contracts in the case of Kosovo. The second area (2) is about identifying red flags and discrepancies in the process of data gathering. As such, this report focuses on exploring the crucial problem areas (red flags) found along the process of data gathering in regard to the monitoring of open government contracts for COVID-19, to then conclude with further recommendations on how to approach them accordingly.
The lack of a more user friendly website of the ARBK as the main source of retrieving data regarding businesses registered in Kosovo, points out the main difficulty during the companies search. In order to find suppliers, precise use of wording, grammar and spelling has to be utilised to find companies, some even being listed under the name of the owner in the tenders. This makes it difficult to extract the data. Incompleteness of information is also a complication as some red-flags were unable to be identified should they exist due to some companies not disclosing the capacities in the stock of products they produce and the original products they were established to produce. The use of the ARBK website was crucial when extracting information as the Supplier and Supplier ID could be found there, however, unless you are provided with the Supplier ID number from the PPRC, it will take a very long time to navigate through the ARBK website to be able to retrieve the ID. Thus, we recommend that the ARBK improves their user friendliness by upgrading their search buttons in their website in order to make it easier to find certain businesses, because we do not always possess the exact legal business name of a business, but we know some keywords associating it to the business which should be more than enough to locate businesses.
In more concrete terms, there were also red flags that cannot go unnoticed in terms of the contracts that were monitored during the months of March — May. These contracts were specifically Covid-19 awarded tenders before and after February 1, 2021. A total of 322 contracts were monitored carefully throughout this period, out of these 24 were direct contracts awarded to a single bidder and 105 were selectively negotiated with no public announcement of the tender. Significant issues and opportunities for corruption occur in times of crisis or significant delays in a procurement process when emergency procurements must be conducted. The issues with direct and selective tendering which usually claim “emergency procurement” are those of lack of transparency and corruption that may take place. A rushed process with a single seller can be subject to manipulation and/or unequal treatment of sellers. In turn, this may also lead to complaints from sellers which may mean that the tender needs to be cancelled, further delaying the procurement process.
“In the EU, even in normal times, 28 percent of cases of corruption in the health sector are related specifically to procurement of medical equipment” (Hanna, 2020). This risk is only accelerated by the Covid-19 crisis where emergency procurement is more likely to take place. Therefore it is essential that emergency procurement is considered very carefully, justified and published so that the process can remain transparent and free of manipulation.
In the Kosovo list of contracts, there were three suppliers which were highlighted as winning tenders three times from the same government entity in a very short period of time. One of these contracts was further inspected as the contract value exceeded the tender value by €430,000. In addition, some contracts were awarded to companies unfit for the provision type, which consequently increases doubts as to why the buyer would agree to granting tenders to such companies. This would be apparent in the ARBK website where the tag associated with the company would not coincide with the type of contract.
In addition, some price descriptions include the quantity of goods but not the price that coincides with that quantity, which results in incomplete information. More specifically, 44% of all the contracts monitored have the quantity included, whereas only 36% of the total have the price per unit included in their price descriptions. As such, there may be discrepancies in the cost/quality ratio that are unable to be monitored due to missing information. In times of crisis this can be detrimental for the public, more so when the procured materials are for medical purposes which can result in significant problems with healthcare. Lastly, some price descriptions omit VAT, more specifically, the 36% of the total contracts that have the price/unit also include the VAT, while the rest lack both the price/unit and omit VAT altogether, which is a necessary element in price calculation.
Recommendations
Due to the information gathered and problem areas identified, we offer two key recommendations on how this part of the monitoring process can be improved so that orderly and transparent extraction of data can take place. The two recommendations are as in the following:
(1) Increase overall user friendliness of the ARBK website (platform). E.g. One identified area which needs immediate attention and intervention is the upgrade of the search bar by also including the keywords section so that businesses can also be located by only using keywords entitled to those specific businesses.
(2) There should be completeness of information (all organization identifiers, quantity of items purchased, price per unit). Requirements should be set in place so that this may become practice for all future contracts. This will enhance transparency as prices per unit and tender value can be compared to determine the fairness of the quoting process for the lowest price (was it good value for the money, was it the lowest possible price, is there a good cost/quality ratio etc).
