Auditors Critique North Macedonia Over Uncompetitive Pandemic Tenders

State auditors in North Macedonia have criticised the tender procedures during the pandemic, saying the process lacked due competitiveness.

For each ten procurements related to the health crisis last year, nine were carried out by striking direct deals with companies, the state audit office, DZR, said in its latest report published on Tuesday.

This practice of carrying out procurement procedures, "by direct negotiations and without a public call for collecting offers, prevented competitiveness and equal treatment of the economic operators", the auditors said.

The report is based on their checks on 19 state institutions between March and October 2020, each of which dealt with procurements that were intended to directly or indirectly combat the spread of the COVID virus.

During this period, the auditors found that these institutions spent 416,6 million MKD, or roughly €6,7 million on procurements, most of them carried out by striking direct deals.

The report also found that there were no clear guidelines or forms on how to standardize tendering documentation for emergency procurements.

Some of the institutions, although declaring in their documents that they were procuring goods and products specifically needed for prevention and protection from the coronavirus, used the same shortcuts in procedures to also procure materials needed for their everyday functions, unrelated to the pandemic.

"Additionally, institutions carried out emergency procurements in the period when they could have organised regular public procurements procedures," the DZR noted.

The auditors also found that the country lacks clearly defined criteria that would ensure the best quality of procured protective equipment. They also found that...