Page 47 - BNE_magazine_06_2020 Growers

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clarify these doubts as soon as possible,” said Dr Alma Sedlar, president of TI Slovenia, in a statement on April 24.
Specifically, Sedlar said the developments show that Slovenia does not have adequate mechanisms in place to make the necessary purchases during a crisis.
“Putting responsibility on bodies with no experience or staff, setting up ad-hoc groups, engaging pro bono advisers
and similar approaches all dangerously increase the risk of corruption. Without established procedures, the possibility of unethical influences and informal pressures is high,” commented Sedlar. This doesn’t just waste public money,
it also puts lives at risk, she warned.
Raspberry farmer moves into
medical sphere
Just days later a similar scandal broke in Bosnia, where the owner of a raspberry farm was contracted to supply 100 medical ventilators.
The import was carried out by the company owned by TV presenter Fikret Hodzic, Silver Raspberry, and was approved by Fahrudin Solak, chief of the Federal Civil Protection Headquarters for a price of BAM10.5mn (€5.4mn), which was paid directly from the Civil Protection Account of the Bosnian Federation, Sarajevo Times reported.
Jelka Milicevic, the finance minister and chairman of the Federal Civil Protection Administration’s staff, however, claims that no consent was given to purchase the equipment.
The State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) now says it will check the deal, as the ventilators were allegedly purchased for more than double the normal price. The Bosnian prosecution and the Public Procurement Agency are also involved in the investigation.
This is not the only procurement scandal to have broken in Bosnia since the start of the pandemic. Other incongruous entrants to the medical procurement market, as reported by OCCRP, include
a publishing company purchasing face masks for central bank staff and a tourist
agency providing equipment to medical institutions.
Commenting on the Silver Raspberry scandal, OCCRP wrote: “The case ... shows the importance of transparency during emergency situations, as everyone seems to be able now to become a medical equipment retailer overnight, which opens the door for irregularities.”
In Romania, a shipment of 1mn face masks that arrived in late March was eagerly welcomed. However, when healthcare workers started using the masks they said many of them simply broke when they tried to put them on.
Research by investigative journalism site RISE Romania revealed that the contract to supply both the masks and protective suits to strategic state healthcare supplier Unifarm was given to B.S.G. Business Select SRL, a previously dormant company that was taken
over recently by Simona Ciulavu, who worked for Romania’s current Prime Minister Ludovic Orban when he was transport minister.
Ciulavu since became “romantically and financially involved” with a controversial Romanian police officer,
nightclub fire back in autumn 2014 was compounded by the infections contracted by many of the victims who later died in hospital, approximately doubling the death toll.
A few months after the Colectiv scandal brought down prime minister Victor Ponta’s government, a journalistic investigation by Gazeta Sporturilor newspaper revealed that sub-standard disinfectants supplied by Hexi Pharma to most Romanian hospitals possibly contributed to the deaths of the Club Colectiv victims. Hexi Pharma owner Dan Condrea committed suicide the day before he was due to speak to prosecutors, leaving many questions unanswered.
Cancelled contract
Unlike the Bosnian raspberry farmer and the Slovenian gambling impresario, Kyiv- based manufacturing company Textile Contact at least had relevant experience when it was given the contract to supply 90,000 protective suits.
However, the health ministry decided
to halt the UAH22mn (€715,000) contract, saying the suits were not up to European standards, and turned instead to a distributor that will import 71,347 suits from China for UAH35mn. This is
“When healthcare workers started using the masks they said many of them simply broke when they tried to put them on”
former Commissioner Petru Pitcovici, who is being investigated in three trafficking cases, according to RISE.
She took over B.S.G. just as the World Health Organisation declared a coronavirus pandemic, “and a few days later she was already intermediating an order on behalf of Unifarm, marking a profit of hundreds of thousands of euros,” said RISE’s report.
Romania, sadly, is no stranger to healthcare procurement scandals. The tragedy of the Club Colectiv
around double the cost per item of the original contract.
Commenting on the health ministry’s decision to get involved in procurement, Anticorruption Action Center ANTAC board member Olena Scherban said it was a worrying development
“We are afraid that the return of purchases to the ministry will return former corruption schemes. Recent investigative reports have confirmed the continued misunderstandings of the Ministry of Health with numerous
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