The Central Election Commission (CEC) of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has warned that it suspects unjustified slowing down and obstruction of the process of procuring a system for biometric voter identification and scanning of ballots due to certain appeals. One of the appellants, according to the CEC, is repeating appeals against decisions rejecting previously submitted complaints. We asked whether this is a deliberate slowing down of the public procurement process and whether it can slow down or stop this process.
The Public Procurement Review Office of BiH should urgently consider the repeated appeal of one legal entity against the decision of the CEC regarding the procurement of the system for biometric identification and scanning of ballots. The appellant, the CEC decision states, does not by any claim prove that it could submit a bid that meets the requirements. Instead, they say, it focuses exclusively on speculation about the alleged favoring of certain manufacturers.
“The CEC of BiH points out that the economic entity that continuously files appeals in this procedure has not proven the existence of a legal interest to participate in the public procurement in question, nor has it, according to available information, shown that it possesses the necessary financial and technical capacities for its implementation,” the CEC of BiH said.
Court-established facts indicate that there is great potential for election manipulation that suits certain political actors, so the sabotage of the procurement of equipment that would prevent this is expected, says Transparency International (TI).
“From the experience of monitoring public procurement processes, I think that over all these previous years, it has been shown that what is intended to be procured does get procured. There is a way for this process to be completed in accordance with the law, and I think there is enough time and the funds have been secured, so if there is will, I believe that at the next elections we can have new technologies,” said Srdjan Traljic, spokesperson for TI BiH.
On the other hand, every new appeal slows down the process and can jeopardize it, and there is less and less time to prepare for the implementation of this system.
“We have already reached a time crunch when it comes to this public procurement. According to estimates, at least nine months are needed to implement the entire process, which includes the public procurement itself, the selection of the bidder, delivery of the equipment, adaptation of that equipment, and training of voters and members of the election administration, and only then implementation at polling stations,” said Dario Jovanovic of the “Pod lupom” Coalition.
A member of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH (PABiH), Sasa Magazinovic, says that public procurements cannot be stopped after amendments to the provisions of the Law due to the emergence of professional appellants.
“If what existed earlier still existed, we could say that someone has the opportunity to stop the process completely. This time, that is not the problem; it can slow it down by about 15 days or however long it takes to consider the appeal, but if the tender documentation is in order, no one can stop the public procurement process,” said Sasa Magazinovic, a representative in the House of Representatives of the PABiH.
So far, the CEC has partially upheld the technical and procedural part of the complaints in two cases. These are complaints by the companies “Shot” from Zenica and “Ultimax” from Banja Luka. One foreign company also filed a complaint. The value of the equipment for six thousand polling stations and other accompanying elements of this public procurement amounts to 88 million BAM.
