Democracy Plus (D+) held a discussion roundtable publishing the report “The Role of the Procurement Review Body in Public Procurement Inefficiency”. D + analyzed all decisions of the Procurement Review Body (PRB) for the period June 2018 – May 2019. Some of the key findings are; lack of consistency in decision making, lowering the trust on PRB decisions. Another finding is that the PRB generally ignores other applicable laws, such as the Labor Law, thus creating issues for tenders for physical security and cleaning of premises where workers are underpaid and forced to work overtime.

Ms. Christine Danton from USAID emphasized the need to increase the trust in Kosovo’s institutions and for the PRB to increase consistency in decision-making. She also said she hopes the new government will elect two more members of the PRB.

The Chairman of the PRB board, Blerim Dina, admitted that there is inconsistency in decision-making and indicated the steps the PRB will take to improve this. He said that now all the experts who make their expertise have certain forms that they have to fill out.

Mr. Dina emphasized that steps are being taken to improve consistency as this is being viewed as a stain for the PRB.

PRB review panel faces many erroneous recommendations from review experts, who make mistakes ranging from simple mathematical calculations to errors in declaring that some documents were not requested in the tender dossier. D+ states that this is a major issue for the PRB and measures should be taken to review all recommendations of review experts.

During the discussion, another issue was presented regarding the ineffective blacklist for non-compliant companies. D+ has found that blacklisted companies are free to bid in other tenders, while the law states that blacklisted companies are not eligible to bid while on this list.

Finally, D+ recommended the PRB to take measures to improve the PRB’s decisions. D+ recommended the PRB to audit all expert recommendations, create a database of earlier decisions, and use the database from D+ in order to improve the situation regarding inconsistent decisions. Another recommendation was for the PRB to publish all complaints, expert recommendations and other documents on the PRB website.

Click here to download the report.

This report is supported by USAID’s Transparent, Effective and Accountable Municipalities in Kosovo.