The provincial authorities in Vojvodina have allegedly purchased two luxury cars (Audi) which stands in violation of several articles of the Law on Public Procurement and Competition.
“At the same time, with the money spent on the rental of the two vehicles, they could have purchased one of them and still had €14,000 at their disposal”, reads the analysis published by Transparency Serbia (TS) on its website.
On 11 May, the Directorate for Joint Affairs of the provincial authorities announced that it would conclude a contract to lease the vehicles from Porsche mobility d.o.o from Belgrade, which was the sole bidder. The estimated value of the contract was 9.8 million dinars (excluding VAT), and the subject of the public tender was the rental of two new cars for 12 months, with payment to be made in 12 instalments.
Transparency Serbia states that this public procurement was not provided for in the Public Procurement Plan for 2021, nor in the subsequent four amendments to the Public Procurement Plan, so it was envisaged by only the 6th version of the Plan, adopted on 16 April 2021. No procurement was envisaged by the 2021 Financial Plan.
“The problem is that this public procurement obviously violated several provisions of the Public Procurement Law by stipulating that the colour of the vehicle had to be ‘mythos black metallic, as it says in the technical specification. Only Audi can meet this requirement as this colour is only used by that car manufacturer,” the analysis states.
This is a violation of Article 7 of the Public Procurement Law, on the principle of competition and non-discrimination, which states that the strongest possible competition should be ensured.
It is also claimed that Article 100 of the Public Procurement Law, which expressly states that “technical specifications may not refer to a particular trademark”, has also been infringed.
(Danas, 30.05.2021)
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