Tag: balkan insight

Independent Media in Central and Southeast Europe Under ‘Assault’ – Report

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Reuters Institute report says ownership concentration and government hostility threaten the future of independent journalism throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

Independent media developed in Central and Eastern Europe “in a dizzyingly short time frame” after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, a new Reuters Institute report says – but its future remains uncertain as a result of politicians’ hostility and ownership concentration under politically well connected moguls.

The report, Fighting Words: Journalism Under Assault in Central and Eastern Europe, issued on Wednesday by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and the University of Oxford evaluates the situation of the media in the region by drawing on interviews with about a hundred journalists in 16 countries during 2019.

“In Europe, one of the safest continents in the world for press freedom, three journalists have been murdered in the last three years,” author Meera Selva of the Reuters Institute writes.

The report goes on to list the deaths of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta, a country out of the area of study, Jan Kuciak in Slovakia and Viktoria Marinova in Bulgaria, all killed while reporting “on government corruption and organised crime”. 

“They [the killings] happened in a climate where many journalists have been attacked and undermined and discredited by politicians, where the media have been captured or financially weakened, and where lawsuits have been used to systematically hamper and inhibit the pursuit of investigative, independent journalism,” the study said.

The report recalls that the 27-year-old Slovak journalist shot dead alongside his fiancée in February 2018 was part of a group of reporters who then prime minister Robert Fico in November 2016 called “anti-Slovak prostitutes” who “don’t inform” but just “fight with the government”.

Similarly aggressive language has been used against journalists in recent months in the Czech Republic, which two years ago dropped from 23rd place to 40th in the World Press Freedom Index, partly due to the concentration of media ownership “driven by the current Prime Minister Andrej Babis”.

In the Western Balkans, the report notes, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama “frequently refers to journalists as rubbish bins (kazan), while the leader of the opposition, Lulzim Basha, refers to the media as ‘captured and bought.’” 

Rama’s government has also passed a set of so-called anti-defamation laws that allow state agencies to hear complaints about news sites, demand retractions, impose fines and even suspend their activity, the report reads.

In Montenegro, an investigative journalist, Olivera Lakic, was shot in the leg in May 2018. A month before, President Milo Djukanovic accused the publication she worked for, Vijesti, of promoting “fascist ideas”, after the newspaper revealed the business dealings of Djukanovic’s son’s when he was the ruling party leader. 


Montenegrian journalist Olivera Lakic at the offices of Vijesti newspaper in Podgorica, Montenegro, 11 May 2018. Archive photo: EPA-EFE/BORIS PEJOVIC

Around 63 per cent of those who took part in the survey said politicians had criticized them in public speeches or on social media because of content they had published. 

Some of the respondents said their harassers had used the same online space that has made publications known for their “fearless anti-corruption reporting”, such as Hungary’s 444.hu and Slovakia’s aktuality.sk, to troll and threaten them. 

Over 64 per cent of those questioned said they had been victims of attacks because of their profession. Of that number, 83.3 per cent said they were attacked online, with over 16 per cent of them seeing sensitive personal information revealed online by their tormentors. 

Media turned into government cartel

Marius Dragomir, whose own report, Media Capture in Europe, is quoted in the study, said: “The collusion between the political class and media owners has reached unprecedented levels, leading to a phenomenon known as media capture, a situation where most or all of the news media institutions are operating as part of a government-business cartel that controls and manipulates the flow of information with the aim of protecting their unrestricted and exclusive access to public resources.”

The report said the media had been exposed to this process in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria, among others, “where several commercial media outlets were sold to businessmen who wanted to use the media to boost their political influence”. 

In Bulgaria, the report notes how a parliamentarian, Delyan Peevski, “who also owns the country’s largest cigarette manufacturer, gained control of a large number of media outlets, which he uses in an openly partisan way”.


A picture made available 13 April 2014 shows Bulgarian media mogul and politician Delyan Peevski during a meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria, 17 February 2012. Archive photo: EPA/STR

Hungary was described as the “most egregious case” of “media capture”. The report said: “Between 2014 and 2018 ownership of news assets shifted to and increasingly concentrated in the hands of pro-government oligarchs.” 

Governments use the partisan distribution of advertising by the state and public companies against independent media in Hungary, Poland and Serbia, the report added. 

Libel lawsuits and anti-terror laws used as weapons

Independent publications in these countries are also systematically subjected to lawsuits focusing on libel and defamation, while anti-terror and national security legislation is also used to make their work difficult.

“In many countries, freedom of information and national security laws essentially cancel one another out,” the report suggested. 

One such case of this was Bosnia and Herzegovina, where “the Freedom of Access to Information Act guarantees access to most public records, but the Law on Protection of Secret Data denies access to information of most interest to journalists”. 

In neighbouring Croatia, it added, “laws against defaming and insulting the state and its symbols, and laws against publishing what the law refers to as ‘humiliating’ media content, can be used to go after journalists even for publishing proven facts”.

In March 2019, it noted, the Croatian Journalists’ Association, CJA, held a rally to draw attention to 1,100 ongoing lawsuits filed by politicians, public figures and corporations against journalists. “The public broadcaster alone had filed 36 lawsuits against its own employees and others,” the study pointed out.

The protection of sources is often compromised in the region by the violations of journalists’ privacy. 

Professionals interviewed in the study described being subjected to phone tapping and recording, email interceptions and pressures to reveal their sources.

Journalists listed the support of media organisations in their own countries as the most important source of protection against such pressures. Help with legal costs and support from international organizations came next.

Albania’s EU Commitment Questioned over Media ‘Censorship’ Laws

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Albania’s adoption of controversial ‘anti-defamation’ media legislation flies in the face of its commitment to European Union values and reflects the Socialist Party government’s tightening grip on freedom of expression, media experts warn.

The government of Prime Minister Edi Rama says the package of laws, approved by parliament on December 19, is designed to protect individuals from unfounded online attacks, but rights groups and media experts say it will gift authorities far-reaching powers to censor online media.

Rama was unmoved by warnings from the European Commission – the executive arm of the EU, which Albania wants to join – as well as local and international media watchdogs and protesting journalists, telling parliament:

“The anti-defamation [package] is a necessity to protect individual rights and the ability to respond legally against public attacks on personal dignity or blackmail due to public service and entrepreneurship in the market, without breaching freedom of expression and the pluralism of sources of information.”

“I have had talks with the European Union and the Council of Europe,” he said, “and have told them, ‘You have not read the law you are talking about.’”

Rama’s critics, however, say such disregard for the complaints casts fresh doubt over his government’s democratic credentials. It also stands in stark contrast to his government’s stated aim of clinching accession talks with the EU – refused by the bloc in October – and the undented popularity of the bloc among Albanians for the past two decades.

The laws create a Complaints Commission within the Albania Media Authority with the power to review the content of online media outlets and levy heavy fines in the event that online media refuse to remove content that the commission deems questionable. Its adoption follows years of increasingly bitter complaints from Rama over media coverage of his Socialists, in power since 2013.

“Nobody should be in any doubt – with the approval of a law that incorrectly claims to be against defamation, Albania will have a censorship office for the media,” Albanian philosopher and communications expert Artan Fuga wrote on Facebook immediately following the approval of the law.

“It will be an office not a court that will judge the media and this office will have the power to oblige media to remove certain news. You can call it what you like, but this is simply a censorship office.”

Power to block sites without court order


Albania Prime Minister Edi Rama speaking in the parliament on 18 December. Photo: Gent Shkullaku/LSA

Albania has been a candidate for EU membership since 2014, but EU leaders – repeatedly overriding the recommendations of the Commission – have refused to open accession talks, most recently in October when French President Emmanuel Macron led opposition to launching negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia.

Despite the long wait and frequent refusals, Albanians remain overwhelmingly in favour of pursuing EU accession.

The EU and the Council of Europe, Europe’s main human rights forum, sought to use their leverage to get Rama to rethink the media legislation, but the EU’s leverage in particular in the Balkans has been weakened by the diminishing prospect of further EU enlargement in the foreseeable future.

Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic expressed particular concern over the discretionary powers granted to regulatory bodies, “the possibility to impose excessive fines and to block media websites without a court order, as well as the introduction of state regulation of online media.”

Such powers, she said in a statement on December 19, “may deal a strong blow to freedom of expression and media freedom in the country.”

“It is of the utmost importance to ensure that the Internet remains an open and public forum and that self-regulation by the media, including online media, prevails.”

The European Commission said the laws did not fully reflect the recommendations of the Council of Europe and that it had “taken note” of their approval by parliament.

Will EU act?

Human rights lawyer Dorian Matlija of the Res Publica centre in Tirana said the legislation stood on shaky legal ground.

Looked at in the context of the entire European legal corpus on matters of freedom of speech, defamation and protection of dignity, he told BIRN, “this law is like a butcher with a machete readying for rough cuts.”

“Even the concept of what online media is, as defined in this law, is shaky,” Matlija said.

European parliamentarians joined the chorus of criticism. On the eve of the vote in Tirana, Swedish MEP David Lega, a member of the powerful centre-right European People’s Party bloc in the European Parliament, tweeted that the legislation “will seriously endanger the chances for opening of EU membership negotiations.”

Some local observers agreed.

“Albania has an obligation to have laws that are 100 per cent compatible with European standards and this latest piece of legislation surely deviates from that,” said Afrim Krasniqi, executive director of the Institute of Political Studies, a Tirana-based think-tank.

He warned that the move threatened to further undermine media plurality in Albania, citing the “quasi-monopoly situation that four family-owned television networks have in the market.”

But Gjergji Vurmo, a Tirana based EU expert and researcher for the US think-tank Freedom House, saw little indication that Brussels would actively confront Rama.

“The Commission doesn’t seem determined to oppose this,” he said.

Western Balkans Have Yet to Embrace Freedom of Information

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Between January 2017 and June 2019, BIRN journalists submitted 854 official requests to access public documents in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. With the aid of the information gained from these requests, BIRN produced numerous investigative pieces and so exposed wrongdoing by governments, companies and powerful individuals.

On the basis of the submitted FOI requests, BIRN has also published an in-depth analysis of institutions’ openness to FOI requests across the countries of the Western Balkans. This shows that while Freedom of Information laws in the region are among the most liberal in Europe on paper, implementation of these laws is well below European standards.

Implementation also varies between the Western Balkan countries themselves. Some countries are showing an improvement, for example, by public institutions publishing large amounts of data and documents.

Others, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, lag behind. It is now the only country in the Balkans that does not even offer access to public records in electronic form. In some other countries, like Montenegro and Serbia, there has been a decline in implementation, as a result of legislative changes and political pressure.

Of the 854 official requests that BIRN submitted to access public documents, less than half of them, 408, were actually approved; 224 were partially approved, meaning the institutions provided only technical information, while 221 requests were either rejected or no answer at all was received, despite repeated follow-ups from the journalists.

Looking at the ratio between requests that were submitted and answered positively, in Albania the score was highest, at 61 per cent. It was followed by Kosovo, at 56 per cent. In Serbia, institutions provided the requested information in 40 per cent of the cases, while in North Macedonia the figure was 33 per cent. The worst response rate was in Bosnia, where institutions replied to only 25 per cent of requests sent.

For many journalists in the Western Balkans, where independent media are often under attack and pressure, Freedom of Information laws are often an important pillar of their own freedom, and are sometimes the only way to obtain information.

In recent years, however, there has been a certain tendency among institutions to close the information door and experiment with new ways to deny public information, especially to journalists, who have been traditionally the most frequent users of these laws.

To withhold information, institutions often either ignore requests or mark the requested information as classified.

In many cases, BIRN journalists have been forced to file complaints in order to get the data they want, or a decision on their request.  This process often lasts long, disrupts journalists’ daily activities and prolongs the whole investigative process, which can end up using outdated data.

In Kosovo, BIRN journalists submitted the majority of their 337 requests to municipalities, ministries, the Telecom Company, the Prosecutorial Council, Judicial Council, the President’s Office, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Procurement Review Body. Of these, 188 were approved, 27 were partially answered and 122 were rejected.

BIRN Kosovo repeatedly submitted complaints about denial of access to public documents. In all cases, the Ombudsman asked the relevant institutions to grant access. But only 45 per cent of these requests resulted in BIRN gaining access to the requested documents. Another 20 per cent of requests resulted in BIRN gaining partial access. The remaining 35 per cent is still pending.

In North Macedonia, BIRN submitted 233 information requests, of which just over a third were approved.

While most countries in the region, such as Serbia, Albania and North Macedonia, have liberal Freedom of Information laws, at least on paper, there is a worrying trend in Montenegro, where latest changes to the law allow the head of an institution to decide which information shall be marked “classified”. This change has been widely criticized, as it contains a series of exclusions that are not in line with international standards or the country’s own constitution.

In Albania, meanwhile, a new law includes a number of novel concepts, including the possibility of re-classifying secret documents, the release of partial information and the use of information technology to make information held by public institutions more available to the public.

In Serbia, BIRN submitted 95 requests. Of these, 13 were fully answered, 25 were partially answered and 20 were rejected or no answer was received. Another 37 requests were still pending by the time of publication. Although the legal deadline for institutions in Serbia to respond to such requests is 15 days, in some institutions, like the Interior Ministry,  the average response timeframe is a month or longer.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, BIRN filed 12 requests and it took regular follow-ups and reminders before the authorities ever responded, even though, as in Serbia, the legal deadline to respond is 15 days. In reality, it takes a month or more.

Looking at the annual reports of regional Commissioners, Serbia’s received the highest number of complaints, 64 per cent, during 2018. Albania came next, with 13 per cent, followed by North Macedonia, on 10 per cent and Montenegro, with 7 per cent. The lowest number of complaints reported by the Ombudsperson’s Office was in Bosnia and Herzegovina – 5 per cent – and in Kosovo, only 1 per cent.

BIRN’s analysis also showed that local government institutions are more responsive to requests for information while central government institutions are more likely to postpone decisions and eventually reject journalists’ requests. Possible reasons for this could be the nature and exclusivity of the information that these institutions possess.

The lowest positive response that BIRN journalists had, in term of individual institutions in the region, was with the Civil Aviation Authority in Albania, the Ministry of Foreign Trade in Bosnia, the Post in Kosovo and the Interior Ministry in Serbia.

As part of BIRN’s drive for openness, it has established a free, user-friendly, searchable online library of public documents and scraped database, called BIRN Source. To increase access to open data for journalists, in January 2020 BIRN will also launch a new online platform, the BIRN Investigative Resource Desk, BIRD, which will provide a digital space and user-friendly tools for better and stronger investigative journalism.

BIRD will provide journalists with various types of assistance, including a set of useful tools and information in one place related to freedom of information, data access and protection, cybersecurity and open-source datasets.

Read the full report here.

Download Albanian version here.

Download Serbian version here

Data Leaks and Ship Tracking: BIRN’s 10th Summer School Begins

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The 10th edition of the BIRN Summer School of Investigative Journalism kicked off on Monday in the Montenegrin coastal town of Herceg Novi.

The weeklong summer school brings together journalists from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and the United States.

On the first day, after an introduction by Marija Ristic, regional director of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, those attending heard from Reuters investigative projects editor and the school’s lead trainer Blake Morrison about how to approach complex investigative stories, pitch ideas and find the right words to craft them.


BIRN Summer school in Herceg Novi. Photo: BIRN

“Experts aren’t simply meant to be quoted in stories,” Morrison said in one of his tips for those attending.

“The best ones – the most helpful, at least – are the ones who serve as your guide to understanding what you cover. Find a few. Be aware of their biases and treat them with a reporter’s skepticism. Ask them what are you missing. What do they see?”

Suddeutsche Zeitung journalist Frederik Obermaier, who was part of the Panama Papers investigation, spoke about investigating data, verifying leaks and the problems he and his team faced as they trawled though terabytes of data.

“Authenticity, public interest, no conditions, request for comment and known identity of the source, are 5 tips on what to check for when dealing with data leaks,” said Obermaier.

The debate continued during Obermaier’s second session when he looked at the case of the video leak that brought down Austria’s right-wing vice-chancellor, Heinz-Christian Strache, and eventually the country’s coalition government.

After a break, the reporters discussed story proposals and heard from BIRN’s investigative editor, Ivan Angelovski, about how to track ships and planes online.

BIRN’s Summer School is organised in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, headed by Hendrik Sittig, The Balkan Trust for Democracy and Austrian Development Agency, the operational unit of Austrian Development Cooperation and with support from the European Union.

OSCE Criticises ‘Abuse’ of Bulgarian Investigative Journalist

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The media freedom arm of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, said on Tuesday that it is concerned by the “verbal and physical intimidation” of Bulgarian investigative journalist Dimitar Stoyanov of Bivol.bg when he tried to approach a lawyer for an interview the previous day.

“Journalists must be free to pursue their job without fear or abuse,” said a message posted on the OSCE media freedom Twitter account.

Stoyanov posted a video on Monday showing him being pushed and threatened by a private security guard while trying to approach Bulgarian lawyer Momchil Mondeshki during what appears to be a convention in Hanover in Germany.

Lawyer Mondeshki was a key figure in the so-called ‘Yanevagate’ scandal in 2015, which erupted after a series of leaked audio recordings published by Bivol.ge revealed alleged influence-peddling within the higher ranks of the Bulgarian judiciary.

In the recordings, a voice identified as Mondeshki talks to former Supreme Court of Cassation president Vladimira Yaneva about her covering-up sensitive documents. They also discuss the influence that high-ranking politicians have on the judiciary.

The Bulgarian prosecution did not charge any high-ranking politician or magistrate implicated in wrongdoing by the recordings as the tapes were deemed to have been manipulated.

Monday’s incident was not the first time that Bivol’s journalists have faced intimidation.

In September 2018, Stoyanov was apprehended by Bulgarian police alongside Attila Biro from the Romanian investigative platform Rise Project. The two journalists were taken into custody by local police near Pernik, south of Sofia, causing an outcry in both their home countries, as well as abroad.

They were arrested as they tried to film the subjects of their investigation burning documents related to the misuse of EU funds by consultancies and companies connected to the Bulgarian GP Group, a construction firm.

The international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said in a 2018 report that investigative journalism still faces serious obstacles in Bulgaria.

Bosnia Blows Millions of Euros on Official Limos

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Bosnian state institutions and companies last year launched tenders for official vehicles worth more than 93 million Bosnian marks – equal to about 46 million euros.

The total value of the tenders actually completed in 2018 was over 19 million euros and bought some 926 vehicles, data from the BIRN BiH database indicate.

This amount includes all vehicles procured last year, including trucks, ambulances and police cars.

Just over 10.6 million KM – 5 million euros – was spent on purchasing 329 official limousines whose price averaged 32,000 KM, about 16,000 euros.

The Medical Faculty in Mostar, in southwest Bosnia, bought the most expensive passenger car. Purchased from the MRM Company from Ljubuski, it cost close to 100,000 KM, including tax. The faculty director, Milanko Bevanda, did not respond to BIRN’s inquiry concerning this procurement by the time of publication.

Mostar University and its members launched eight tenders worth more than 420,000 KM during 2018.

The MRM Company won two of those tenders as the only bidder. The same company won most tenders in Bosnia during 2018, and earned 5.3 million KM through 25 tenders.

MRM from Ljubuski was the only bidder in as many as 96 per cent of the open tenders, or lots, that it won during 2018. There was only one bidder in 87 per cent of all the tenders completed in 2018.

Besides MRM, the biggest tenders were won by Lada Auto Banja Luka (2.6 million KM), Porsche BH Sarajevo (2.1 million KM), Guma M Mostar (1.9 million KM) and Autokomerc V.S. Banja Luka (1.6 million KM).

Only Porsche BH answered BIRN BiH’s queries by the time of publication saying that the company fully complied with procurement  legislation and honoured strict internal policies.

Skoda Superb is one of the most frequently bought vehicles by Bosnian politicians. The District Heating Company from Doboj bought one last year for just over 45,000 euros – including tax, the second most expensive passenger car bought last year.

The director of District Heating, Sladjan Jovic, did not respond fully to BIRN BiH’s inquiry about why such an expensive vehicle was bought, who would use it, or whether they could have purchased a cheaper vehicle.

He did say, however: “The vehicle will be used as an official vehicle for the needs of the Company in accordance with the Company Work Plan and other programming and planning documents of the Company.”

BIRN BiH noted nearly 100 tenders, which make up almost 15 percent of all tenders, for providing detailed vehicle specifications or precise dimensions or features of a certain vehicle, which Public Procurement Law in Bosnia prohibits.

The procurement of 66 ambulances also started last year, while tenders for 28 of them were completed.

Just over a million euros was spent purchasing those vehicles, which was only a fifth of the total sum spent on passenger vehicles.

Used ambulances were bought through three tender procedures.

Officials sought the purchase of even fewer fire trucks – only 35. Some 6.2 million KM – about 3.1 million euros – was spent on buying 161 police vehicles last year.

The total of purchased police vehicles, fire trucks and ambulances was fewer than passenger cars, and their total price was also smaller than the total price of the passenger vehicles.

Read more:

Dodik’s Luxury Limo Stands Out in Bosnian Election

Bosnian Officials Spend 4.5 Million Euros on Vehicles

Dodik’s Luxury Limo Stands Out in Bosnian Election

Posted on by BIRD

Among the many politicians driving around Bosnia in the campaign for the general elections on October 7, Milorad Dodik, Bosnian Serb president and candidate for the Serbian seat on Bosnia’s state presidency is riding the costliest limo of all, according to a BIRN database of cars in government ownership.

The current president of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, RS,  has listed a Mercedes 500 from 2010 at his disposal, which his office procured for 125,000 euros, based on latest official documents on car maintenance and insurance.

Office of the president of Republika Srpska also has an Audi A8L from 2011 which was procured for 85.000 euros.

The second most expensive passenger car in the BIRN register of official vehicles is a Volkswagen Phaeton from 2013, worth 109,000 euros, which belongs to the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers – the state government.

The car is available to the Chair of the Council, Denis Zvizdic, from the main Bosniak Party of Democratic Action, SDA, who is standing as a candidate for the state-level parliament.

Zeljka Cvijanovic, now RS Prime Minister and a candidate for the post of RS president, has at her disposal two Audi A8s, worth more than 100,000 euros. The RS assembly’s General Secretariat spent over 18,000 euros on car tires this year.

The members of Bosnia’s state presidency all have expensive cars. Four of the ten most expensive passenger cars in the Register of Official Cars belong to the presidency.

Three expensive Audi A8s, each worth about 100,000 euros, form part of a fleet of 36 cars worth 1.7 million euros, available for the three members of the presidency and for two candidates standing for this year’s new mandate – Mladen Ivanic and Dragan Covic.

Bosnian Foreign Minister Igor Crnadak, a candidate for the RS assembly, from the opposition Party of Democratic Progress, has an Audi A8L valued at 75,000 euros.

Bosnian Justice minister Josip Grubesa, a candidate for the state parliament from the main Croat party, the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ BiH, has an Audi A6, worth 50,000 euros.

The BMW of Bosnian Security minister Dragan Mektic, who is running for a seat in the state parliament, has the same value.

Mirko Sarovic, Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, from the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, drives a slightly cheaper Audi A6 than his party colleague Mektic.

The head of the public roads company in the RS, Putevi Srpske, Nenad Nesic, has a luxury Skoda Superb, worth a bit over 30,000 euros.

Nesic is a candidate for the state parliament from the Democratic People’s Alliance, a coalition alley of Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD.

In 2018, this company bought two more cars, a Skoda Superb and a Hyundai Tucson, and 16 others vehicles, bringing its fleet up to a total of 44 passenger vehicles.

The BIRN database, containing a register of vehicles owned by institutions and public companies, and showing their average cost – around 25,000 euros – can be seen here.

Read more:

Bosnian Officials Spend 4.5 Million Euros on Vehicles

Bosnian Serbs to Protest Over Officials’ Luxury Limos

Bosnia elections 2018 

Bosnian Officials Spend 4.5 Million Euros on Vehicles

Posted on by BIRD

In the first six months of the year, around 4.5 million euros was spent on vehicles for government officials, institutions and public companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to BIRN Bosnia’s new database.

Of this sum, 1.5 million euros were spent on cars, some of them luxury models. The other three million euros were spent on vehicles like fire trucks, ambulances and SUVs.

A total of 292 tenders were issued to purchase the vehicles, but in more than 70 per cent of the tenders that were fulfilled, only one company applied, the database shows.

Bosnian government institutions and public companies published tenders to purchase 563 vehicles during the six-month period, around half of which were passenger vehicles and SUVs.

So far, 106 tenders have been fulfilled to buy 213 cars – 128 of them new and 38 secondhand, and in the other cases details have not been made public.

The most expensive vehicle purchased in the first six months was for the medical faculty of the Mostar University, in a tender worth 50,000 euros.

Mostar medical faculty dean Milenko Bevanda first issued the tender in late 2017, but annulled it after receiving BIRN’s request for a comment about the purchase.

But in spring this year, Bevanda repeated the tender and bought a new vehicle worth 42,300 euros without taxes from the MRM company in Ljubuski.

BIRN’s database shows that in the first six months of this year, MRM won the most valuable tenders, worth over 375,000 euros.

Porsche BH from Sarajevo won the most tenders, valued at a total of 285,000 euros.

Of the 292 issued tenders in the database, BIRN marked 26 tenders in which the requested specifics of the vehicle are so detailed that they can limit competition or suggest a preferred manufacturer, which is against the country’s public procurement law.

In six tenders, the final value of the tender or purchase exceeded the amount which was planned.

The Bosnian Serb Interior ministry bought six used vehicles for more than 10,000 euros more than the estimated amount.

In the rest of the tenders, the demanded specifics of the vehicle suggest or sometimes directly state a particular model or manufacturer, which is against the public procurement law.

BIRN Bosnia published an analysis in December showing that around five million euros was spent on vehicles in 2017.

After BIRN’s reports about violations of public procurement practices, several institutions amended their tender specifications.

The database also contains a register for vehicles already owned by institutions and public companies, which shows that the average cost of a vehicle is around 25,000 euros.

The Bosnian presidency and the two entity presidents own a total of 54 cars, worth around 1.7 million euros.

The database can be seen here (Bosnian language only).

Read more:

Bosnian Serbs to Protest Over Officials’ Luxury Limos

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