Transparency International in BiH (TIBiH) submitted to the Public Procurement Agency a request for monitoring the procurement procedure “Construction of public lighting in the city of Banja Luka according to the ESCO model”, after it was observed that one of the members of the group of bidders – the Belgrade company “Aviator Group”, submitted certificates of executed contracts for which publicly available data from Serbia indicate that they could not be issued.
The contract worth 35 million KM was won by a group of bidders consisting of “Končar” dd Zagreb (the leading member of the bidder group), “Somborelektro” doo Sombor, “Aviator Group” doo Belgrade and “Dema & S” doo Mostar, according to the tender documentation.
The detail that makes this procurement questionable is that the conceptual design and the economic feasibility study estimate the value of the works at around 13 million KM with a deadline of 6 months. In addition, the City of Banja Luka, in a public invitation, predicted repayment in 180 monthly installments (15 years) in the amount of more than 35 million KM.
However, the question of the real nature of the contract and the legality of the procedure was further expressed by the fact that the bidder was required to provide proof of technical ability, i.e. a certificate of the realization of several contracts of a similar type, such as the installation of LED lamps, possession of appropriate licenses, qualified personnel and necessary equipment.
As part of the offer of the group of bidders that won the contract, “Aviator Group” attached references issued by “Elgra Vision” doo Belgrade, for three jobs in Majdanpek, Niš and Čačak. However, by reviewing the publicly available data on the public procurement portal of Serbia, TI BiH determined that “Elgra Vision” could not issue those certificates because it was a subcontractor or a member of a group of bidders who, according to the contract, are not allowed to subcontract.
In all three cases, this company was not the holder of the contract, which means that it did not perform the mentioned works independently, and therefore could not submit certificates of the realization of contracts of a similar type that were requested in the tender for the construction of public lighting in Banja Luka.
In addition to this, TI BiH points out that the entire procedure, worth over 35 million KM, should have been conducted as a public-private partnership project, and not as a classic public procurement of works.
The ESCO model, according to which this procurement takes place, foresees that a private company finances and maintains energy efficiency measures and is clearly defined by the Law on Energy Efficiency of the RS entity as a form of public-private partnership. This form of cooperation foresees a more complex procedure and the involvement of several competent bodies, such as the opinions of the Ministry of Finance of the RS, the competent departmental ministry and the City Assembly.
By concluding this work through the public procurement procedure, and not as a PPP, the city administration of the City of Banja Luka retained complete control over the process of defining tender conditions, the process of selecting the most favorable bidder and evaluating the implementation of this work.
Because of all this, TI BiH asked the Agency for Public Procurement of BiH to monitor the procedure and check whether the provisions of the Law on Public Procurement of BiH were violated, and from the competent ministries to assess whether this case is actually a public-private partnership project that is exempt from the public procurement system, writes TransparentBa.
