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The Ministry of Health has signed a contract worth 1.7 billion dinars with three companies for the acquisition of equipment for the new kovid hospitals being built in Zemun and Krusevac, deciding not to apply the Public Procurement Law (PPL).
Photo: FoNet / Senad ZupljaninThe justification given for circumventing the LPP is that equipment is being purchased in the field of defense and security.
However, Danas interlocutors from the non-governmental sector warn that the entire procedure, although it refers to equipment for military hospitals, was carried out without a valid legal basis, and that the purchase of medical devices during the epidemic cannot be considered a recruitment in the field of defense and security.
The Ministry of Health signed a contract at the beginning of October with the companies Magna pharmacia, Drager tehnika and Beolaser, which will supposedly provide complete equipment for the Kovid hospital in Krusevac and Zemun, and the completion of which has been announced early, i.e. mid December.
The explanation for starting this process, which was carried out without public invitation, which means that only companies invited by the Ministry could participate, expresses the article of the Public Procurement Law, which establishes that the provisions of said law do not apply to defense and security agreements, where the application of the law would mean the disclosure of information contrary to the security interests of the country.
The construction of two covid hospitals in Zemun and Krusevac is coordinated by the Ministry of Defense, however, as pointed out by the director of the Serbian Transparency program Nemanja Nenadic, in this case there was no legal basis to carry out this contracting without applying the Law of Public contracting.
– In other words, although it is about equipping military facilities for the needs of covid hospitals, it is obviously not about acquisitions “in the field of defense and security.” If a part of the tender documentation had to be confidential, this could be ensured by determining the confidentiality of this information, and not conducting the procurement completely without publishing a public invitation and therefore limiting the tender only to companies. that the contracting authority wishes. calls, says Nenadic.
Dragan Dobrašinović, director of the Toplica Center for Democracy, also points out that the entire equipment procurement process is based on an inadequate legal basis.
– First, this is the recruitment of the Ministry of Health. It refers exclusively to medical equipment and is completely related to the corona virus pandemic, which has nothing to do with the military. There is no justification for applying this part of the law, because this contracting does not have a point of contact with the country’s security, says Dobrasinovic, recalling that inadequate interpretations of the law were often used to carry out public contracting outside the regular procedure.
The Ministry did not respond to Danas’ questions about why the recruitment procedure was carried out without announcing a public invitation and whether competition is limited in that way.
Suspected of manipulating the tender
The Beolaser company, which the media reported last year as part of the establishment of a public procurement at Pirot hospital, also landed the equipment procurement position. As KRIK wrote, Goran Petrovic, director of Pirot General Hospital, was arrested at the time, on suspicion of influence peddling, and manipulated Beolaser in Belgrade to win a tender for the purchase of an electronic board for a CT scanner, as well as Dragan Rokic, director of Beolaser.
Respirators are being purchased again
According to the document published on the Public Procurement portal, the equipment of two kovid hospitals includes the purchase of beds, ultrasound equipment, computed tomography scanners, but also respirators. When Danas asked why respirators were being purchased again and if that means that all those previously purchased have been busy since the beginning of the epidemic, the Ministry of Health did not respond.
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