Director of the Institute for Public Health of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sinisa Skocibusic, says that he is saddened by the conditional assessment of the Office for the Audit of Institutions of the Federation on the contract for the procurement of Sinofarm vaccines.
He says that the publication of information from the Agreement damaged the credibility of this institution.
Skocibusic said that they asked Sinofarm to terminate the contract, but they were refused and Sinofarm demanded 10 years of secrecy.
Tranparency International announced a lawsuit, because they failed to reach this agreement, because as they state, the secret should be only the one whose publication can cause damage to the state.
“The Government of FBiH together with the Institute of Public Health has launched a whole series of activities to ensure the vaccine for the population of the Federation and it is a very complex process. In the end, we concluded a contract with the Chinese supplier Sinofarm where, at the request of the manufacturer, we clearly put a confidential mark in the contract, which was a contractual obligation”, explains Skocibusic.
Since the end of last year, Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH) has been unable to gain access to the contract for the procurement of vaccines against COVID-19 worth 12.5 million marks, which was signed by the Institute for Public Health of the Federation of BiH with the Chinese companies Biotec Group and Sinopharm.
Because of all this, TI BIH asked for the reaction of the Administrative Inspection because the Institute first refused to provide information, and now it refuses to resolve the complaint TI BIH, which is why it is not possible to seek judicial protection.
“The Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina gave consent to the Institute to put the mark “confidential” on the contract, although according to the Law on Confidentiality of Data of Bosnia and Herzegovina, such a thing is only possible if the publication of the data “would harm the security or interests of Bosnia and Herzegovina”. In this case, those conditions were not met, but the Institute refuses to deliver the contract, and in its response to TI BIH they state that placing the mark confidential was a condition of the Chinese company in order to conclude the procurement of vaccines against COVID-19. The mark of secrecy was set for ten years, and the Institute states that the publication of the contract “could have harmful financial consequences for the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and future business with business partners”,” Transparency International announced.
In the entire case, the Institute’s management did not take into account the fact that it is a matter of public interest, so TI BIH will continue the legal battle for the publication of this contract, especially due to the fact that the procurement is illegally exempted from the application of the Law on Public Procurement.
This was pointed out in the latest report by the Institutional Audit Office of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which states that the justification of the exemption from the application of the provisions of this Law cannot be confirmed.
The process of procuring vaccines lasted over three months, which is contrary to the legal provisions that define the exemption from the process of public procurement due to urgency, which in the opinion of the BiH Public Procurement Agency represent situations when it is necessary to react at the same moment, e.g. within one or two hours, even in a few minutes, that is, when it is objectively not possible to apply even the negotiation procedure, it is stated in the Audit Report of this institution.
The auditors conclude that the FBiH Government declared the contract confidential at the supplier’s request, even though it involves public funds.
The auditors conclude that the FBiH Government declared the contract confidential at the supplier’s request, even though it involves public funds
It is interesting that the Institute’s management in its response to TI BIH quotes exactly this interpretation of the Public Procurement Agency, justifying the exemption by the fact that it had to react within one or two hours or even a few minutes. Nevertheless, the procurement was launched on March 10, and the contract was concluded only on June 9, which clearly shows that there was enough time to conduct a more transparent procedure.
An additional problem is that the contract for the transport of these vaccines, worth over 470 thousand BAM, was exempted from the Law on Public Procurement and awarded to the company “Hercegovinalijek”, even though there was enough time to implement a more transparent procedure.
The auditors also state that in the end, over 300,000 of these vaccines, which are the least used for immunization, remained in the warehouse.
Also, the auditor’s report states that significant amounts of vaccines were not used due to their expiration dates and were postponed for destruction. The institute did not present to the audit the documentation on the basis of which the specifications of the vaccines would be determined, nor that the bidder’s qualifications were checked.
The auditors conclude that the FBiH Government declared the contract confidential at the request of the supplier, even though it is about public funds and the procurement of goods that concern the public health of FBiH citizens, which is not in accordance with the principle of transparency defined by the Law on Budgets in FBiH.
TI BIH points out that the publication of this contract is also important due to the fact that citizens have witnessed numerous corruption scandals during the pandemic, which is why investigations and court proceedings are being conducted, which has certainly undermined public confidence in the entire system.
