Bulletin, Volume 11

In this issue

Former minister of defense and deputy of the ruling party in Croatia and ex-US vice president are being investigated in corruption-related cases – the first one for alleged illegal public procurement and the latter for bribing a Nigerian national in business matters linked to natural gas. At the same time, Croatia’s president decorated several brave citizens, who were ready to risk their lives in the fight against corruption and organized crime.

On the other hand, there is a different situation in Bulgaria. An analysis prepared by journalist Borjana Dzambazova suggests that, due to police indifference and the fear of judges from those who are being tried, many people are being acquitted in cases related to crime and corruption. As a result, the anti-corruption campaign in Bulgaria has failed in court.

In the previous issue of the monthly report, European Commission’s assessments on the anti-corruption policy and public procurement in Macedonia were presented, which were highlighted by the EU in its latest progress report for Macedonia on its road towards EU full-fledged membership. In this issue, our regular associate and one of the most esteemed anti-corruption experts in Macedonia, Vanja Mihajlova, compares the EC assessments of other Western Balkan countries regarding the matter.

Assessments on the scope of corruption and measures aimed at diminishing it are unfavorable for all of the countries. Corruption is still considered a sensitive issue in the region. The general conclusion is that corruption is largely spread and that authorities do not demonstrate real political willingness to deal with it, even through certain counties show better results, especially in processing high-ranking corruption cases. Numerous shortcomings, lack of transparency and inadequate application of laws are also being noted in the field of public procurement.

In continuation, we focus on a vital issue in the sphere of public procurement here – accessibility to documents related to public procurements. Could they become accessible to the public? If this is possible, then who, when and what can be obtained? Could data and documents be made only available for inspection or a document – in its original form or a copy – could be given to interested parties? These and other questions linked to the issue are being analyzed by an expert on public procurement, Darko Janevski.

He concludes that certain bidders, who request to inspect documents included in the offers of applicants, can and should carry out an inspection.

In this issue of the monthly report, we once again hope to deal with issues that are significant in your work and stimulating enough to make you think and act in enabling enhanced transparency and accountability of your actions.

The eleventh MAK issue can be found here