
A German firm will audit the allocation of funds by the Agricultural and Rural Development Agency, which has unfairly given millions of euros to politicians, people connected to them or even big businessmen for agricultural development. The Ministry of Finance has announced the winner of this tender, opened a few weeks ago, also published by the editorial staff of VoxNews.
Meanwhile, in the recently announced documents, it is noted that the German firm had a larger fund than another firm, but the "similar work" criterion also declared them the winner.
The above document is the announcement of the winner of the tender, announced by the Ministry of Justice. The subject of the tender was “external audit (forensic audit) to assess the implementation of the IPARD II Programme (2014-2020) in Albania”.
"The contract implementation period is 165 days from the date of conclusion of the contract. Through this form, we inform you that, in this procedure/lot, 'FTI Consulting Germany GmbH' participated, with a bid value of 376,800 euros excluding VAT. The second firm that participated was 'Forvis Mazars' with a bid value of 29,800,000 lek excluding VAT," the documents state. So, significantly many times lower than the first German firm.
The same documents state that "Forvis Mazars" was disqualified from the participants because "it has no similar work". "The economic operator does not meet the qualification criteria regarding previous similar experience. It is required that the economic operator must prove the performance of previous similar services with a value of not less than 39% of the limit fund subject to procurement, carried out during the last three years" these documents state.
According to the ministry, this firm, “Forvis Mazars Albania”, part of the Mazars network, is more focused on legal audits, mainly in Kosovo, Turkey, and the Western Balkans, having a limited presence in complex 'forensic' projects. “Despite contracting foreign experts with experience in 'forensic', the company 'Forvis Mazars Albania' itself does not have in-depth expertise in organizing and conducting 'forensic' audits, and has not presented supporting documentation, certificates and or invoices, to prove similar experience,” the ministry writes, giving the tender “aforfe” to the German firm, despite offering 99% of the limit fund.
VoxNews investigation of October 2024, investigating the allocation of IPARD II funds
In October 2024, the Ministry of Finance opened a tender to investigate AZHBR for the allocation of millions of euros from the IPARD II program. The procedure has also been published by our editorial office, where a tender worth 377 thousand euros would verify the procedure for granting these funds to beneficiaries who were also from the underworld, which led the EU to stop the further continuation of the program, freezing tens of millions of euros that would have gone to Albanian agriculture. It is about "investigating" one of the biggest abuses that has occurred in Albania, where EU funds went through fraud and conflict of interest to several individuals connected to power.
“The contractor must prepare a draft report, with clear and concise results, and a Final Report. The reports must be submitted to the National Authorizing Officer. All documents must be addressed to the NAO, Ms. ADELA XHEMALI, Deputy Minister of Finance,” the documents state. The documents published by the Ministry of Finance, obtained by VoxNews, state that Albania was accredited by the European Commission for the implementation of the IPARD II Program with the signing of the Financing Agreement in May 2018, with a budget of 94.3 million Euros, of which 71 million Euros was the EU contribution and 23.3 million Euros was the national contribution.
“During the implementation of the IPARD II Programme, in February 2021, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) conducted an investigation into the IPARD Agency, receiving 54 files from calls 1 and 2. In July 2023, the European Commission (DG AGRI) informed the Albanian authorities that due to the preliminary information received from OLAF, the Commission would temporarily suspend the reimbursement of payments to Albania until corrective measures were taken. The report identified several findings of serious irregularities, fraud, conflict of interest in several projects financed by the IPARD II Programme, as well as the failure of the AZHBR to identify signals of irregularities and prevent them,” the document states. So it speaks quite clearly of fraud and conflict of interest, and even the failure of the institutions to react.
"To this end, in cases where irregularities or fraud have been identified during the implementation of the program, the NAO may request an assessment of the implementation of procedures by the responsible structures through an independent external audit according to international auditing standards," the documents state.
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