Opinion: KFOR General: ‘I’m Happy our Adverts Provoke’ April 8 - 22, 2010 Issue No. 37 www.prishtinainsight.com Now on sale for € 1 Australian NEWS Guard Injured in Surgeon Lifts Explosion Lid on Dark at Disputed Side of Kosovo Building Conflict > page 4 Craig Jurisevic’s memoir will shock many with its portrait of disorder and corruption – as well as heroism – behind the BUSINESS Kosovo war frontlines in Highway Deal 1999. See Page 8-9 Signed Without Price Tag Kosovo Minister’s Friends > page 5 GUIDE Flourish from Road Bonanza Trepca’s Haunting A number of lucrative building contracts appear to have gone to friends and relatives of Fatmir Limaj – and to compa- Beauty nies whose experience in the field appears to be limited. > page 10 By Lawrence Marzouk and Post-Telecommunications since The Ministry of Transport did all charges at the International Petrit Collaku 2007. Using this information, from agree to open its files on tenders to Criminal Tribunal for former Kosovo’s official register of busi- Prishtina Insight, although it later Yugoslavia, ICTY, in 2005. One of the FOOD & DRINK ompanies associated with nesses, we have compiled a list nam- refused to allow the newspaper to most popular politicians in the gov- Prishtina’s new Kosovo’s Transport Minister, ing the firms that won the 50 most look at the offers submitted by com- erning Democratic Party of Kosovo, CFatmir Limaj, are among those lucrative contracts, the value of the panies. PDK, he has been dogged by unsub- Indian Restaurant that made big profits from Kosovo’s huge tenders, the owners of the winning We asked for an interview with stantiated accusations of corrup- road-building programme in the past two firms, the dates of the companies’ Minister Limaj, but he declined. tion. Reviewed years. creation and the size of their work- Instead, Endrit Shala, chief of cabi- Our investigation established An investigation by BIRN’s forces. net at the ministry and Limaj’s that Limaj’s ministry awarded two > page 10 Prishtina Insight has uncovered Transport ministry official right-hand man, said the minister large contracts to a close friend, that some firms, handed multi-mil- Endrit Shala has dismissed the list had played no part in tenders Habib Morina, and handed the sec- FEATURE lion euro road-building contracts, as the work of an “intelligence awarded to his friends. He added ond-largest contract to date for a also appear to have had little experi- agency”, however, and has claimed that given Kosovo’s small size, it was road-building project, worth 11 mil- Student’s ence in the relevant field. its publication formed part of a no surprise that “somebody knows lion euro, to another friend, his rela- Prishtina Insight has also estab- campaign to discredit Limaj. someone”. tive, Colonel Haxhi Shala. Headscarf Divides lished that two multi-million euro The same official said he had “The tender process of the Morina told Prishtina Insight his tenders issued to a friend of Limaj’s records of the movements of Ministry of Transport is very trans- relationship had played no role in Kosovo Society ought to have been disqualified, as Balkan Investigative Reporting parent. We respect all of the rules the tender processes while Col the firms failed to provide the neces- Network journalists, the people and procedures of the procurement Shala said he was no longer an > page 7 sary documentation. they had met and the documents rules of Kosovo,” Shala said. employee of the company, Delia This newspaper has looked at they had collected. When asked to Limaj, a former high-ranking Group, which won the contract. every significant road tender issued explain the statement, he declined member of the Kosovo Liberation NGO FOCUS by the Ministry of Transport and to elaborate. Army, KLA, was tried but cleared of continues page 2-3 KRCT: A Voice for Germia’s 1.3 million Stability at Risk with the Voiceless > page 14 euro Building Site Rising Unemployment The future of the half-finished Every day for more than one week, Musa Administrative and Protocol Centre in Gashi has been waiting near Bill Clinton Germia Park remains uncertain, despite Boulevard, Prishtina, for someone to offer the allocation of three million euro to com- him a job. plete the structure, Prishtina Insight has Near him are ten other manual labour- learnt... ers, hoping to find a job... city page 6 business page 5 Y M is supported by: C K 2 April 8 - 22, 2010 special report Kosovo Minister’s Friends Flourish from page 1 Prishtina Insight has also estab- did not submit an audit report for Kosovo has spent some 170 million lished that another friend of the 2007. As a result, the whole consor- euro on road-building projects in the minister’s, Habib Morina, also from tium should have been disqualified last two years. The Ministry of Malisheve, won two major road ten- from the tender. Transport has absorbed a growing ders, worth 5.8 million and 4.5 mil- Morina’s AHN Group, mean- share of the budget, mainly as a lion euro respectively. The informa- while, won a major road tender in result of the expansion of road- tion was obtained from tender July 2009, worth 5.8 million euro, to building projects. award documents and the compa- build part of the road to Mitrovica, In 2008, Limaj’s budget was 139 ny’s entry on Kosovo’s business reg- as part of a consortium with Timi million euro, more than 10 per cent ister. Krsko, a Slovenian-based firm of Kosovo’s total budget of about 1.3 Morina’s firm, Patroni, best whose owners also come from billion euro. In 2009, it rose to 160 known as owners of a chain of Malisheve. Again, Morina succeed- million. The figure for 2010 is more petrol stations, won a 4.5-million- ed, although his offer was not the modest at 124 million euro, but the euro contract to build the road from lowest in price. ministry still receives the highest Insight Prishtina BIRN for by Photo Arllat to Xerxe in the Malisheve This is technically acceptable, as share of the budget of any ministry. A newly laid road, south of Lake Batlava. Some experts complain of poor quality asphalt. region in September 2008 as part of the rules for the tender stipulated Limaj took over the ministry fol- suggested we contact the owners, the firm’s “authorised persons”, he a consortium. that the “most economically advan- lowing November 2007 general elec- which he knew to be the “Delia offered no other explanation. An audit of the ministry’s tageous” company would be selected tions and immediately set about con- brothers”. The tender was open to all bidders accounts by the Auditor General for – not necessarily the company offer- necting villages with new asphalted Minutes later, a staff member of and was awarded as a result of being that year revealed that another bid- ing the lowest-price bid. roads and rebuilding Kosovo’s traf- Delia Group telephoned to confirm “the most economically advanta- der offered to do the same work for However, according to the pro- fic arteries. that Shala had worked for the firm geous” offer, which means that the less. The ministry said it chose curement board’s evaluation of the He told road-building companies but was no longer with them, owing procurement board had to weigh up Morina’s consortium because it offers, which Prishtina Insight has they would have to work 24 hours a to “staff changes.” He suggested we different criteria, including price, scored maximum points for “techni- seen, the AHN Group and Timi day and there would be enough work speak to the owner, Viktor Delia, but quality, and other issues, before cal criteria”. Krsko failed to provide key docu- for all of them. According to the he has not returned our calls. deciding the winner. However, the auditors wrote that ments, including copies of contracts ministry, some 1,000 km of road The minister’s advisor, Endrit The board said Delia Group’s 11.8 they detected “no big advantage” on certifying the value of work their were built in 2008 and 2009 as part of Shala, explained that Haxhi Shala million euro bid was the best, even technical grounds between Morina’s firms had undertaken in the past 200 projects. was probably associated with the though one firm submitted a lower bid and the cheaper, rival offer. The three years and details of their tech- But our research shows that more firm because the colonel “used to price of 11.5 million euro. ministry has not responded to nical staff. Failure to submit such than one-third of the winning ten- live” at the address of Delia Group. During the limited time provided requests for an explanation. documents usually leads to bids ders were issued to firms that only But when Prishtina Insight to Prishtina Insight to check the The audit also revealed that being disqualified. registered after Limaj took up his showed the advisor a copy of the evaluation report of the offers, the another company in the Patroni con- Morina denies his success in position. firm’s entry in the business register, process appeared to have been car- sortium, Jehona, failed to meet the obtaining contracts owes anything Given the poor state of roads at which lists Haxhi Shala as one of ried out properly. guidelines for applying because it to his friendship to the minister. “I the time, the minister’s dynamism and “no-nonsense” approach has The Road Building Bonaza: This table includes all major road tenders awarded by the Ministry of Tranport since 2007 over the value of 2million euro.