Auditor confirmed TI BiH warnings – Concealment of vaccine procurement contracts is illegal
Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH) has been unable to gain access to the COVID-19 vaccine procurement contract worth 12.5 million marks since the end of last year, which was signed by the Institute of Public Health of the Federation of BiH with Chinese companies Biotec Group and Sinopharm. As a result, TI BiH requested a response from the Administrative Inspection because the Institute first refused to provide information, and now refuses to resolve TI BiH’s complaint, making it impossible to seek judicial protection.
The Government of the Federation of BiH gave consent to the Institute to mark the contract as “confidential” although according to the Law on Data Secrecy of BiH, this is only possible if the disclosure of data would “cause harm to the security or interests of Bosnia and Herzegovina”. In this case, these conditions are not met, but the Institute refuses to provide the contract, and in response to TI BiH, they state that marking it confidential was a condition of the Chinese company to conclude the COVID-19 vaccine procurement deal. The confidentiality mark was placed for ten years, and the Institute states that disclosing the contract “could have harmful financial consequences for the Federation of BiH and future business with business partners”.
In this entire case, the Institute’s management did not take into account the fact that this 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 was illegally exempted from the application of the Public Procurement Law. The Audit Office for the Institutions of the Federation of BiH pointed this out in the latest report, stating that the justification for exemption from the provisions of this Law cannot be confirmed.
The vaccine procurement process lasted over three months, which is contrary to the legal provisions that define exemption from public procurement processes due to urgency, which, in the opinion of the Public Procurement Agency of BiH, represent situations when it is necessary to react immediately, e.g., within one or two hours, even in a few minutes, or when it is objectively not possible to apply even a negotiated procedure, states the Audit Report of this institute.
It is interesting that the Institute’s management, in response to TI BiH, cites precisely this interpretation of the Public Procurement Agency, justifying the exemption by the fact that they had to react within one or two hours or even a few minutes. However, the procurement was initiated 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 services of these vaccines, worth over 470 thousand KM, was also exempted from the Public Procurement Law and awarded to the company “Hercegovinalijek” although there was enough time to conduct a more transparent procedure.
The auditors further state that in the end, over 300 thousand of these vaccines remained in storage, which were the least used for immunization.
Also, the auditor’s report states that significant quantities of vaccines were not used due to expiration dates and were set aside for destruction. The Institute did not present documentation to the audit based on which the vaccine specifications could be determined, nor that the qualifications of the bidders were verified. The auditors conclude that the FBiH Government, at the supplier’s request, declared the contract confidential, although it concerns public funds and the procurement of goods related to public health of FBiH citizens, which is not in line with the principle of transparency defined by the Law on Budgets in FBiH.
TI BiH emphasizes that the publication of this contract is important also due to the fact that citizens have witnessed numerous corruption scandals during the pandemic, which have led to investigations and court proceedings, which has certainly eroded public trust in the entire system.
