21.07.2021 – 19:39
The testimony given in court was provided by the former director of public procurement in the Ministry of Interior, Edlira Naqellari, who is one of the 9 officials arrested for the abusive tender for the State Police uniforms. From the SPAK file provided by the ABC journalist, Ermal Vija, it is emphasized that Edlira Naqellari was aware of the identified problems, but nevertheless led to the end the realization of this abusive procurement.
Former director of the Concentrated Purchasing Agency Edlira Naqellari, in her testimony continues to insist that she is innocent while adding that it is still not clear which law she has violated. In the statement given on behalf of SPAK, Naqellari states that finally with the tender that she was conducting, the police and the state would dress properly. Among other things, she points out that the State Police Directorate itself was not clear how many uniforms it needed because there are departures every year and number movements.
According to the SPAK file, the officials of the Ministry of Interior have changed the amount of uniforms, but not the price of ALL 2.8 billion, openly violating the competition standards. In this tender further emphasis that an addition not to change the price was the fact that 35 million ALL would go to the electronic uniform distribution system.
We recall that the 9 suspects Edlira Naqellari, Flutura Cekrezi, Anisa Bogdani, Ani Omuri, Kreshnik Bejkaj, Klevis Hasani, Fatmir Demneri, Gëzim Mingaj and Mariglen Buzali have addressed the Court of Appeals and request relief of security measures. The eight suspects were left in prison, while the suspect Anisa Bogdani went under house arrest.
SPAK raided the Ministry of Interior on July 10, where the former director of the Concentrated Purchasing Agency Edlira Naqellari and her associates, members of the procurement unit, Flutura Çekrezi, Anisa Bogdani, Ani Omuri, Kleivis Hasani and members of the evaluation commission were arrested. of offers, Kreshnik Bejkaj, Fatmir Demneri, Mariglen Buzali and Gëzim Mingaj.
Testimony of Edlira Naqellari:
From all the documentation that was made available to me on the day of the search of my apartment and my arrest, I could not understand which article of the law on public procurement I had violated. Even today it is not clear why me and my former employees as I am no longer the general manager of the Concentrated Purchasing Agency are here. I assure and guarantee you that both I and my employees, professionalism and integrity in the development of the procurement procedure that has become the object of investigation and trial has been respected by law, has shown professionalism, integrity and has achieved a very important priority of the Albanian government was successfully realized, which was to equip state police officers with uniforms. In the acts made available to me on the day of my arrest, I remember that it was a matter of length of proceedings. The procedure has lasted, was published on 26.07.2019 and ended with the signing of a framework agreement in July 2020 due to the complexes that this procurement object presents. The uniform of the state police as a whole was not achieved, was not achieved, has not been achieved as a procurement for years. State police officers have been held with donations donated by the Turkish state or other states. Our whole goal has been to respect the law to successfully carry out a procurement procedure, to sign a framework agreement and to give the opportunity to the General Directorate of State Police as the requesting institution to meet its needs. All this procedure has started with procurement requests sent by the contracting authority to the General Directorate of State Police at the Procurement Agency focused on the quality of the central purchasing body, which has been charged with the relevant amendments.
This has been within the competence of the Agency to conduct this procurement for the state police uniform. The requests of the GDPR were for uniforms, shoes and their distribution to police officers through an electronic distribution system. Since we were in front of the situation when we had requests from the Contracting Authority, the requests came to me and I then directed them to the relevant structures, also for shoe uniforms and the state police uniform is considered one and only from head to toe, from hat to shoe. This procurement was done with a single procedure. We are not obliged by law to share this procurement procedure. On the other hand, the procurement procedure from July 2019 to July 2020, from the publication until the signing of the framework agreement, what has been our task as a central procurement body has lasted that complaints have been submitted by operators and it turns out that after the publication of the procedure on 26.07.2019 within the time limit of 7 days available to economic operators interested in submitting complaints were filed 4 complaints related to technical specifications, distribution system with tender documents. Pursuant to the law, by order I suspended the procurement procedure, based on Article 63 of the Law on Public Procurement Law and I have appointed a commission to review and make a decision regarding these complaints. The Complaints Review Commission has concluded that there is a decision of the DCM of 2016, which authorizes the director general of the state police to approve the said techniques and ways of implementing the uniform.
In these circumstances, the Complaints Review Commission could not review and make a decision on whether or not to accept, in whole or in part, the complaints submitted by economic operators, as it fell outside its competence. For this reason, based on a mero, information that has been made available to me by this commission, we have sent in writing a request for review to the Director General of State Police all claims and arguments of 4 economic operators regarding the tender documents , so that he as the competent authority could decide whether they should be changed or not, whether they should be reviewed. And so it happened, the Director General of State Police reviewed the technical specifications of the electronic distribution system uniform items and sent them to the Concentrated Purchasing Agency.
During all this time, the procurement procedure has been suspended. Upon receipt of the response letters of the amended and revised technical specifications, the complaints review commission was reactivated, taking relevant decisions and communicating these to the economic operators who had submitted complaints. The 10-day animation deadline for the public procurement commission was further respected in relation to these decisions, at the same time by the procurement unit based on the documents, in the decision of the General Director of State Police to change these technical specifications and relevant annexes were made. In the tender documents that have been made public in the electronic procurement system of the Public Procurement Agency, the 10-day time limit for possible complaints to the public procurement commission has been respected. It turned out that only one complaint was filed and a complaint which the public procurement commission did not consider in relation to the annexes to the tender documents. All this is to clarify the duration of the procedure.
Through the selection of the restricted procedure we have achieved that on January 10, 2020, which was the date of opening the applications for participation for the first phase before the qualification, we had 6 qualified economic operators and in the end three qualified economic operators resulted.
Regarding the evaluation of the bids, it turned out that it was submitted for the first phase, or it turned out that a complaint was submitted by one of the 6 participating operators, a complaint which was not considered, suspended the procedure due to the deadlines that Article 63 and Article 78 of the Public Procurement Rules provides that this economic operator has not appealed to either the commission or the Administrative Court, nor has the administrative exhaustion of the appeal been made to the Administrative Court for the election of the disqualified economic operator. In the second phase of the 3 bidders that submitted their bids, one of the disqualified filed a complaint regarding the decision-making of the evaluation commission
In the second phase of the 3 bidders that submitted their bids, one of them filed a complaint regarding the decision-making of the bid evaluation commission, whose complaint was not considered by a complaint review commission set up by me, but he also The decision of the evaluation commission of the qualification bids of one of the bidders and the disqualification of the other two bidders was verified by a complaint review commission, this economic operator that was complained did not exhaust again the right for administrative appeal in the public procurement commission and further in the Administrative Court.
Regarding the change of the limit fund, as far as I remember it was part of the decision, the general fund of the framework agreement was published on 26.7.2019 in the amount of about 2 billion and 800 million new ALL without VAT and such has remained unchanged until the end of the procedure and the signing of the framework agreement. The framework agreement has no fixed amounts. Furthermore, the document itself, the framework agreement signed between the Concentrated Purchasing Agency and the winning economic operator in one of its articles, provides that the contracting authority, the General Directorate of State Police, has the right to contract, to supply less for some items, more much for some others or none of those goods items that are procured. Even the claim for change of quantities or adjustment made by the structure of the procurement unit for adjustment of quantities is in full compliance with what the framework agreement provides, expected quantities, reference quantities, not fixed quantities.
Regarding my situation, I want to clarify that I have very good knowledge in the field of public procurement since 2005. I have never had any problems in the exercise of my duties. I have always applied the law and this has been the case. The situation that has now been caused to me at the request of the prosecutor and with your decision to arrest me in prison, has not only worried me, it has not only affected my health or psychological state, but also that of my family. The measure requested and imposed in this case is absurd, illegal and is not based on law, there is no argument, there is no word or sentence in those acts that have been made available to me to be charged with a violation of certain legal. Each structure involved in the procurement procedure has performed only its task independently in accordance with the law. On behalf of all employees I guarantee you for this, no one is favored, on the contrary you are given the opportunity to participate and offer to everyone. If you are going to get and view statistics the level of participation of economic operators is a very high procedure. The framework agreement does not bring economic harm because with a certain deadline and fund, the contracting authorities enter into contracts for as much as they need at the time when they need it. The framework agreement fund has not been paid to the winner. Within that fund, according to the needs of the state police officers, contracts will be concluded on a case-by-case basis according to their specific needs, within this 4-year period, and this does not mean that the fund will neither be exceeded nor it is all accomplished and will not be abused.