Center for Investigative Reporting (CIN) has created a unique online database on public procurement, in order to facilitate access to public spending to citizens, and offered information on how and by whom institutions and public companies purchase goods, services or make contracts for public works.
The Database contains information on 39,178 contracts, which 828 institutions and public companies signed with 5,230 companies. The contract value is at least 6.2 billion BAM.
At the press conference held today in Sarajevo, business director of CIN, Leila Bičakčić, said that public procurement is an area that deserves full attention, both because of the amount of money that is being spent but also because of the frequent complaints of corruption and lack of transparency. She said that database will be used for the wider research of public procurement, which CIN will be dealing with in the future.
“CIN decided to analyze the processes, procedures and actors in this sector, and through a series of investigative stories to inform the public about what is really going on – how much procurements are open, if tenders are fair, whether political affiliation is crucial and what the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina are paying for – quality or political games, “said Bičakčić.
CIN’s editor-in-chief, Renata Radić-Dragić, said that the entry of data into the database lasted about half a year, and the whole editorial board was working on it: “We entered the names of institutions and companies that have entered into a business, the way the job was assigned, subject of the contract and its value.”
Ermin Zatega, one of CIN reporters who worked on the database, said that the most of the money, in the past four years, was spent in the energy and health sectors. “The three public power utilities and all companies belonging to them spent on mining machinery, fuel and electricity, nearly 2.1 billion or about one third of the total amount recorded in our database. After that, medicines, medical equipment and materials cost the citizens of more than one billion BAM, “said Zatega at the conference.
He added that most of the money, about $ 1.4 billion, was received by companies from Sarajevo, alone or in cooperation with other companies. Companies from Banja Luka have earned more than a billion BAM, while Mostar’s companies won contracts worth 534 million BAM.
Reporters noted that among the recipients of the contract were companies owned or co-owned by politicians. Their companies got 295 contracts worth more than 103.8 million BAM for the purchase of vehicles, fuel, medicines, hotel accommodation, and construction and forestry works.
The database is available on the website of CIN, completely free and adapted to mobile devices.
(Source: cin.ba)
