An unusual situation is surrounding the large internet tender with a limited fund of around 5.1 million euros, announced a few months ago by the National Agency for the Information Society. Although the winning bids were announced this week, recent developments have raised serious questions about what is happening at the Public Procurement Commission.
According to official documents, one of the participating companies, Albanian Satellite Communications, filed a complaint with the Public Procurement Commission two days ago, also paying the relevant complaint fee, around 26 thousand euros.
At first glance, this is a common procedure, as often happens in public tenders when an economic operator is not declared the winner.
But after verifying the offers, the panorama changes significantly.
Skyweb.al has analyzed all the economic offers and it turns out that Albanian Satellite Communications has submitted an offer of over 5.3 billion lek excluding VAT, while the limit fund set for this procedure is 486 million lek.
Bids in the 5.1 million euro internet tender
In practice, this company's offer is over 10 times higher than the limit fund, which according to public procurement rules automatically disqualifies it from the competition.
26 thousand euros fee
Under these conditions, the question arises as to why a company that has offered such a high amount, and that knows that it has no legal chance of being declared the winner, chooses to pay 26 thousand euros in appeal fees to the Public Procurement Commission?
The appeal fee is used precisely to filter abusive cases and avoid artificially blocking procedures, forcing companies to appeal only when they have a real and viable claim.
Sources close to the process told Skyweb.al that such practices are mainly used when the aim is not to win the tender, but to initiate a procedure that leads to its cancellation and re-announcement with new criteria. Such a scenario, according to the sources, is used to create the ground for pre-determining the winner in a second phase.
AKSH has previously been mentioned in investigations and public files as an institution involved in questionable procurement practices.
The SPAK dossier published a few months ago speaks of a structured scheme, which included cost inflating, pre-determining winners and exerting pressure on the owners of competing companies. The dossier also mentions elements within the KPP, who are suspected of having informed third parties about actions in the complaints system.
bids
According to the offers submitted in this procedure, the economic values vary significantly. Abissnet has offered around 462 million lek excluding VAT, Albanian Fiber Telecommunications around 479 million lek, while the merger of Digicom and Albanian Telecommunications Union around 373 million lek.
MC Networking and Nisatel have offered around 342 million lek, while One Albania has submitted an offer of over 1.6 billion lek. Meanwhile, EnetCom has not submitted an economic offer.
After receiving the bids, AKSHI declared the three bids of the companies MC Networking & Nisanet; Abissnet and Digicom & Albanian Telecommunications Union as winners, disqualifying the other bids.
Among these figures, ASC's offer of over 5.3 billion lek remains completely outside of any economic and legal logic, strengthening suspicions that a larger game may be hidden behind this complaint.
Pending the decision of the Public Procurement Commission, it remains to be seen whether the internet tender will proceed normally or will be involved in a cycle of cancellations and re-advertisements, a practice that has accompanied the largest public procurements in the country for years.
Editorial
