The data administered by BIRN show that Tirana city cleaning tenders for city cleaning have often been conducted with procedures intended for emergency situations, increasing costs and undermining competition among operators.
On February 22, 2016, a committee made up of Tirana Municipality officials convened to announce the winner of a tender for cleaning the eastern area of the city.
This urban space extends into triangular form between Blvd. Zog I in the direction of Paskuqan, as well as towards the road of Dibra, which is followed by Aleksander Moisiu Street in Kinostudio.
According to the Municipality of Tirana, this area has about 80.8 thousand inhabitants, who together with the businesses of the area produce on average 92.1 tons of rubbish every day.
The Bid Evaluation Commission, KVO, in the Municipality of Tirana, has announced the tender winner with a limit fund of 120 million ALL for the purification of the East-1 zone, Ecologica Albania Sh.pk, with the Italian businessman Antonio Abrusci.
The KVO decision was appealed to the Public Procurement Commission, PCC, by one of the participating tenderers, Infinit Construction.
Although the CPC has not yet pronounced a decision on the appeal lodged by Infinit Construction, its request for information to the General Directorate of Road Transport has pointed out that part of the documentation of the vehicles of the company Ecologica Albania, deposited for the tender for cleaning in the Public Procurement Agency, PPA, were forged.
Falsification of documents by the company Ecologica Albania has become part of a criminal report investigated by Prosecutor Ndini Tavani, who on July 28 issued an arrest warrant for Italian citizen Antonio Abrusci, charging Tirana police with detention his.
Abrusci has not been arrested yet, yet the tender won by Ecologica Albania has not been the only suspicious tender for cleaning the city held by the Municipality of Tirana.
Since coming to the head of the former Social Welfare Minister Erion Veliaj in August 2015, this institution has held at least 7 tenders for cleaning different areas of the city with ‘negotiation without prior announcement’ procedure – a procurement form which is justified only in emergency situations.
According to experts, the use of such a procurement procedure by the Municipality of Tirana is unjustified, and should be subject to investigation by the Supreme State Audit.
In its latest audit undertaken in the Municipality of Tirana in 2015, the SAI found that only cleaning firms have caused damage to the city with overflows worth in tens of millions of ALL, suggesting that the mismanagement of this service was present even before the election of Veliaj as the first citizen of the capital.
Contacted by BIRN, the Municipality of Tirana did not respond to a request for comment on the negotiated tenders nor about the steps it had taken to recover the damages caused by the cleaning companies.
Negotiated contract
According to the national waste management plan 2010-2025, prepared by the Albanian government with the assistance of the European Union, every day 1.5 kg of waste per inhabitant or 547 kilograms of waste per day is produced in the municipality of Tirana.
Waste generated by residents of Tirana and deposited in waste containers dispersed in the city are collected according to a daily chart by a number of private companies contracted by the Municipality of Tirana and deposited at the Sharra landfill.
The multi-year practice has been to select these companies through an open procurement procedure, which enables a transparent and competitive process, thus lowering the costs for taxpayers.
But unlike the previous practice, with the arrival of Erjon Veliaj, the municipality has held a long series of tenders for cleaning the city with a procurement procedure negotiation without prior announcement.
At the end of 2015 and beginning of 2016, the Municipality of Tirana has conducted 8 procurement procedures without negotiation. Four of the procurement procedures have been additions to the contract for cleaning the various areas of the city, while three of them have been new cleaning contracts for eastern areas 1 and 2, and western areas 1 and 2.
Additional contract was awarded by TTA ALBA LAM Sh.pk, Infinit Constructions Sh.pk, Korsel Sh.pk and Fusha Sh.pk, while new contracts were concluded with Fusha Sh.pk, TTA ALBA LAM Sh.pk, Korsel Sh .pk and Infinite Construction.
The total value of the limit fund of these 8 procurements was 294.747.300 lekë, while the procurement value resulted 294.624.761 or 99.6% of the fund limit value, which suggests that the competition in these tenders was virtually zero.
According to the Public Procurement Manual, published by the Public Procurement Agency with USAID assistance, the procurement procedure without negotiation is used only in very specific cases, such as when a tender has failed because there is no suitable offer or bid when the tender for technical or artistic reasons are related to intellectual property rights, or when there are exceptional needs due to natural disasters, such as earthquakes or floods.
According to Dorian Matlisa, Executive Director of Res Publica Center in Tirana and public procurement procurement expert, the procurement procedure with negotiation without advertisement is provided by Albanian legislation only for situations where the contracting authority can not make a normal tender procedure.
“It’s always a case that is used in emergency conditions, unpopular and unenforceable to be used in normal circumstances,” Matlija said.
“City cleaning tenders would probably be included in these circumstances only if a major disaster had occurred in Tirana … and it would have to be done, for example, cleaning inert, things of this nature. Or floods should have taken place, for example, sewage waters, but when it comes to a tender that is normal Tirana cleaning, then there is no reason why such a procedure should be used, “he added.
According to Matlia, if this type of procedure has been repeated in Tirana Municipality, then this is a cause or indication for a deepened audit or audit by the Supreme State Audit.
“If it comes to recurring cases, it certainly belongs to another institution and it can not be expected that the internal audit will intervene when it has become a system,” he said.
“This job could do better with the Supreme State Audit because it is a constitutional and independent body,” Matliy concluded.
Under the auspices of the KLSH
In 2015, the Supreme State Audit released a report on the “Legality and Adequacy” audit in the Municipality of Tirana, which included the period January 2013 – April 2015
This report lists a number of financial harms by the companies contracted by the municipality of Tirana to clean up the city, which suggests that the waste management problem in the capital is not related solely to the mandate of Erion Veliaj as mayor, but also to that of its predecessor Lulzim Basha, now leader of the opposition Democratic Party.
According to the SAI, the audit results in large differences in the volume of purification service items procured during 2013, 2014 and January-April 2015, compared with the volumes set in previous contracts for the same facility.
For example, in the tender “Clean East East -3 of Tirana City”, with a limit value of 164.9 million ALL, developed on 25 March 2013, and economic operator Victoria Invest, “we note the change of emphasized the service volumes in 2013 compared with 2012, in the additional value of 5.8 million ALL, which should be returned to the state budget which was unduly benefited by the entity, “the audit report states.
The Auditor of the Supreme Audit Institution has identified a similar issue in the other 6 cleaning contracts concluded by the Municipality of Tirana in the period January 2013- April 2015, related to companies such as Korsel Sh.pk or Infinit Construction, etc. which have continuously served and continue to serve as subcontractors of Tirana Municipality.
According to the ALSAI, the total damage caused to the taxpayers by these contracts is ALL 42.7 million, which the Municipality of Tirana should undertake all the necessary legal and administrative procedures to be collected. It is unclear if this damage has been recovered, but what is clear is that even with the arrival of this new Mayor, the same companies have won heavy tender for cleaning the city./reporter.al
