The National Audit Office has identified several irregularities in the Public Enterprise of the System, Transmission and Market Operator - KOSTT, especially it has found weaknesses in the evaluation of tenders.

According to the Auditor, on 30.10.2022, the company had published the tender file for the "Supply of protective equipment for substations" project. Two economic operators submitted bids in this procedure. ZKA informs that initially the company had eliminated the Economic Operator (EO) with the cheapest price due to non-fulfillment of the technical specifications and had announced the winner of the second economic EO with the cheapest price. According to the report, after the complaint from the eliminated EO, the company had turned the process into re-evaluation, where after this process the complaint of the eliminated EO was approved. While the EO which was initially declared the winner, after the re-evaluation was declared irresponsible due to non-fulfillment of a technical specification that was not part of the complaint, reports KosovaPress.

"The contract was signed on 01.01.2023 with the operator who filed a complaint in the amount of 23,936 euros. After analyzing the business registration documents and verifying them at the Kosovo Business Registration Agency, the two operators that had bid in this tender process had the same business owner. As a result, the company in this case would have to cancel the tender procedure in accordance with the legal requirements", says the report in the Audit Report for the Annual Financial Returns for KOSTT.

It is further stated that the signing of the contract in this case occurred due to the lack of proper verification by the persons responsible for the procurement of the requirements of professional suitability.

For this issue, ZKA recommends the Board of Directors: "I must ensure that during the process of evaluating offers and the process of signing contracts, the procurement department takes care that the principles of real competition are applied and that only responsible operators are rewarded with contracts".

The auditor at KOSTT has also observed an excess of the total value of the category of the framework public contract "Service and maintenance of Trucks with Cranes". According to the ZKA, the price per unit weighted according to the category signed on 25.11.2020 for a duration of 36 months, it was observed that the total value of the category was exceeded for the services performed, which was determined based on the importance of the service in the category.

"The exceeded value for category two is 23,000 euros and category four is 10,000 euros. This happened due to improper scoring of the relevant categories as well as due to improper care in observing and interpreting legal requirements," the report states.

For this, the Auditor recommends the Board of Directors to ensure that controls are strengthened so that payments for services rendered do not exceed the total value of the category which is determined based on the importance of the service in the category.

The Auditor's report for KOSTT resulted in 10 recommendations, of which eight new recommendations and two repeated recommendations.