Editor’s Word: Transparency Eludes Kosovo Govt 5 Years After Independence February 15 - 28, 2013 Issue No. 104 www.prishtinainsight.com Price € 1 NEWS PDK New Airport Chief Has Cousin on Board Keeps > page 4 NEWS Elections Former War Refugee Fights Long Battle Finances for Home > page 5 Secret NEWS MP Paychecks Trump Kosovo’s ruling party is refusing to disclose all Most Kosovars’ the funds it spent on Earnings internal polls, which > page 6 observers say is par for the course. NEIGHBOURHOOD See Page 3 Serbia PM May be Grilled on Drug Gang Ties Ministry Made Rogue Payments, > page 9 CULTURE Says Austrian Passport Firm Balkan Artists Prepare For Venice Austrian company insists it never directed the Interior Ministry to pay its subcontractor, accused of stealing Biennale 1.4 million euro. cancellation of the 14.1-million- pany. ly assigned with auxiliary tasks By Jeton Musliu euro passport contract on January She claims that the money went and customs clearance support,” it 31. on bribes to Interior Ministry offi- said. The ministry said it scrapped cials and an official in the The company noted that it had osovo’s Ministry of the deal when the company Austrian embassy in Prishtina, at selected her in part because of her Internal Affairs made refused to pay VAT on the import- the direction of OeSD. fluency in German and Albanian. Kunauthorised payments of > page 19 ed passports. The company has not But the Austrian printer told The company did not respond to more than 1 million euro to the commented on the tax issue. Prishtina Insight that the ministry Prishtina Insight’s questions subcontractor of an Austrian com- pany making biometric Kosovo The termination of the contract should have never sent payments about whether it was aware that passports, the firm said this week. capped a scandal that started after to Velija in the first place. Velija was being prosecuted in a The claim came in written the arrest on November 2012 of a “OeSD was extremely surprised 2007 embezzlement case. response of the privately run company subcontractor, Natali to learn that, all of a sudden and OeSD said it received initial pay- Kosovo’s only English-language Austrian State Printing House, Velija. for no apparent reason, the [min- ments from the ministry in accor- newspaper is available: OeSD, to a series of questions from A Kosovar with German citizen- istry] had made payments far in dance with the contract. Prishtina Insight. ship, she is accused of stealing 1.4 excess of a million euro to a sub- Delivered to This followed the ministry’s million euro destined for the com- contractor of OeSD who was mere- continues page 2 Your Door Gov’t Places Ads to Lure Serbian Nationalists Bring From Newsstands Brezovica Investors Back Hate Speech across Kosovo The Kosovo government paid thousands January 2013 saw an ominous revival of Sent To of euro for advertisements in two British hate speech in Serbian newspapers and Your Inbox publications, The Economist and Financial magazines, with Albanians subjected to Times, to attract investors for the privatisa- racist slurs, Croats labelled compulsive tion of the Brezovica ski resort. thieves and a regional public broadcaster From The ads ran from January 31 until accused of being a front for Zagreb's inter- our partners February 11, costing a total... ests... business page 7 news page 11 see page 16 for more info is supported by: 2 February 15 - 28, 2013 news Ministry Made Rogue Payments, Says Austrian Passport Firm from page 1 business. EULEX is currently investigat- “We received the original ing Velija and the missing 1.4 mil- After they ceased, it made multi- authorization, stamped and lion euro. ple inquires with the ministry and signed, which shows that we The dispute over the contract received “misleading replies” for should make all payments and and the missing money are not months, it said. charges to that bank account [EU officially related. The company says it only Consulting],” Islami said. However, OeSD’s statement that learned of the payments to Velija Responding to a request from Velija’s duties included assistance after the Austrian ambassador to Prishtina Insight, the ministry with customs’ clearance suggests a Kosovo intervened. released what it says are records of possible link. The company also notes that it the payments to OeSD. Kosovo is looking for a new passport supplier. delivered 280,000 passports to The seven payments, made from Trouble with first delivery: Kosovo and says the ministry owes December 2011 to July 2012, total ments that arrived … and submit- Customs eventually discovered ting them again to the customs,” that the passport shipments were it “a significant amount of about 3.3 million euro. All are to The first signs of trouble in the he recalled. labeled incorrectly and were sub- money”. EU Consulting. contract appeared soon after the Customs then registered the ject to VAT. The ministry, however, insists “We have the bills, they can see arrival of the first shipment of shipments as an import for the On December 13, 2012, its Audit that OeSD presented Velija as “its this at the bank, the money was biometric Kosovo passports and ministry. Department ordered the Interior the legal representative for the sent to their account,” Islami said. personalisation equipment in The shipments also were incor- Ministry to pay 354,000 euro in project supplying electronic pass- But the ministry said it could September 2011, according to a rectly classified as paper for pass- VAT on the four shipments. ports”. not supply Prishtina Insight with June 2012 report of the Kosovo ports, thus exempting them from The ministry contested the Its head of procurement, Agim the authorisation from OeSD, as it Auditor General. VAT. This happened on four occa- sum, saying that OeSD was Islami, said OeSD directed the was in the possession of the Kosovo Customs would not sions in 2011. responsible for paying VAT in its ministry to pay the company European Union’s rule of law mis- allow the Austrian State Printing It is not known whether Velija contract. The ministry then ter- through Velija’s EU Consulting sion, EULEX. House to bring the shipment into played any role in the deliveries of minated its contract with OeSD the country because it hadn’t reg- the passports. for refusing to pay the VAT bill. istered as a business in Kosovo, as The ministry says that it had In fact, the contract between required by law and its contract previously worked with Shala the ministry and OeSD is vague with the ministry. Trade, but it wasn’t an authorised on the issue of taxes. OeSD registered in Kosovo in representative of the ministry at It stipulates only that for the February 2012. the time of the passport deliveries passports and equipment “all The shipment eventually in 2011. duties and taxes applicable to cleared Customs after a customs “It looks like they [OeSD] their importation, including VAT, intermediary company, Shala involved a freight forwarder that shall be included”. Trade, stepped in to act as an worked with MIA [the ministry] Customs maintains that the agent of the ministry to bring the before, but whose contract has ministry’s contract with OeSD passports and equipment into ended in 2010,” Islami, the head of was irrelevant to the issue the Kosovo. procurement, said. VAT payments because the min- “I had the contract and authori- Kosovo Customs says Shala istry was the designated zation from the ministry,” Idriz Trade presented valid documen- importer. Shala, owner of Shala Trade, said. tation showing it was working on In a response on January 24, “The Austrians brought the the ministry's behalf, but would Customs noted that the ministry passports to the border, to Peja, or not release this paperwork citing could have disputed its designa- at the airport. We were the inter- the ongoing EULEX investiga- tion as the importer, but had failed Kosovo PM Hashim Thaci touted the delivery of OeSD’s biometric passports in 2011. mediaries, registering the docu- tion. to do so. Kosovo Organ Trafficking Witness Recalls Surgery Con The witness whose kidney was removed at a Prishtina clinic told the trial of seven Albanians accused of illegally selling organs that he was never paid the money he was promised. September 2008. of law mission prosecutor at the Sonmez was arrested in Istanbul law mission’s jurisdiction in His kidney was then removed Prishtina trial, Jonathan Ratel. in January 2011 but was later Kosovo and therefore will not during an operation at a clinic in “I see a man with glasses, but I released on bail. extradite the Turkish doctor to Prishtina. can’t remember,” the witness said. But Serbia’s war crimes prose- Prishtina. By Edona Peci But the witness could not give The case focuses on allegations cutor said on Tuesday that Sonmez War crimes prosecutor the clinic’s exact name or remem- that poor donors and rich recipi- had absconded to South Africa and Vladimir Vukcevic told Serbian ber what any of the medical per- ents were brought to the Medicus then moved on to another, media that Sonmez had “set up a he protected witness, a sonnel at the clinic were called. clinic in Kosovo where illegal kid- unnamed African country that clinic for organ transplants” in Ukrainian codenamed P.M., “In the evening [after his arrival ney transplants were carried out. does not recognise the EU rule of South Africa. Ttold the court in Prishtina in Prishtina] they invited me to Seven Albanian defendants are last Tuesday that he was promised see the person who would conduct being prosecuted in Prishtina, 30,000 US dollars for his kidney but the surgery.