A tender, recently held by the Transmission System Operator (OST), for the purchase of a transformer worth around 3 million euros, has been accompanied by strong suspicions of predetermined procedures.
At the end of December 2019, the OST led by Skerdi Drenova, a former subordinate of Erion Veliaj in the Municipality of Tirana, announced the winner of the tender with a limit fund of 293 million lekë, the merger of the operators "ALB-Star" - "Shansi Invest" and "GMK".
"Boldnews.al" has verified the tender documents, published on the official website of the Public Procurement Agency (APP), which found some data that raise strong suspicions of an illegal procedure.
Four competitors participated in the approximately 3 million euro tender, including the international company "Siemens", which was included in this competition, in cooperation with an Albanian operator.
The institution led by Skerdi Drenova has decided to disqualify 3 of the competitors, declaring the winner the union of operators that remained alone in the competition.
According to official documents, two of the competitors were disqualified after there were deficiencies in a series of documents, predetermined in the tender criteria.
Meanwhile, the third disqualified party, the merger of operators "Albelettrica & Siemens", was disqualified because, according to the OST, it did not have a full-time IT (Information Technology) engineer employed.
Based on public data, this disqualified competitor had submitted a bid worth about 40 million lek (old) lower than the value offered by the winning competitor. Specifically, the winning competitor submitted a bid of 284.481.580 lek (new) excluding VAT.
While the disqualified competitor, "Albelettrica & Siemens", had submitted a bid of 280.279.380 lek (new) excluding VAT.
So, due to the lack of an IT engineer, as officially argued, the OST decided to declare the winner the competitor who provided the transformer with a value of about 40 million lek more expensive.
It seems somewhat suspicious that the disqualified competitor, Siemens, a company with extensive international reach, has a shortage of IT professionals.
Furthermore, as "Boldnews.al" has learned, the merger of operators 'Albelettrica & Siemens', for this tender alone, had recruited the necessary number of staff specialized in electrical engineering under service contracts.
But, even if the argument that the disqualified competitor lacked an IT engineer were to stand, it still cannot justify the Transmission System Operator's decision to spend 40 million lek more.
The whole situation raises suspicions of some kind of gigantic abuse of public money, where the absence of an engineer (which doesn't seem real anyway) costs taxpayers 40 million lek.
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