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This study presents the findings of the x-index – a public procurement benchmarking tool – which measures and evaluates the performance of municipalities in public procurement and compares it with best practices. The findings are grouped into three categories, based on the size of the municipalities to provide an objective representation.
x-index is based on a statistical model containing 11 sub-indices, each of which assess several dimensions of public procurement, and which jointly focus on the areas of openness, competition and supervision. Indirectly, it measures municipalities’ efficiency and their vulnerability to corruption in public procurement. The x-index includes all 38 municipalities of Kosovo and covers their procurement activities in the period January-June 2018, consisting of 785 contracts in total worth over €50 million. The index is constructed based on objective criteria. The data for construction of the index were obtained from the official e-procurement platform and other official statistics.

Following the first “Benchmarking Public Procurement” report published by Democracy Plus (D+) in May 2018 for five targeted municipalities in Kosovo, D+ has since been measuring the performance of municipal procurement officials. After considerable review of the indicators, D+ updated the second cycle of the ‘’Benchmarking Report’’ to better assess the performance of Pristina, Gjakova/Djakovica, Vushtrri/Vućitrn, Gjilan/Gnjilane and Peja/Peć in public procurement. This report covers the period January 2018 – July 2018, highlighting best practices, irregularities, and violations and focusing on the main developments in public procurement at the local level. The aim is to assess the extent to which the municipalities are operating according to the law, as well as to encourage officials to share good practices in public procurement.

The budget circular is an instructive document that Ministry of Finance circulates to the municipalities for preparing the budget proposal and requirements for other budgetary allocations

The Government of Kosovo has made some progress in improving its public financial management system, where the legal framework has been updated and made clearer. However, Kosovo continues to face a variety of problems in areas such as operational planning, internal management reporting, internal financial control, procurement and management of capital investments. This is due to the lack of proper institutional commitment to good governance, rule of law and the fight against corruption. These concerns continue to emerge year after year, both in international reports, as well as in national
reports, such as those by the National Audit Office (NAO), Anti-Corruption Agency, and various Civil Society Organizations.

Social Accountability tools are being increasingly employed by civil society organizations to monitor the use (and misuse) of public funds for quality service provision by local governments. Using the Social Audit and Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) methods, GLPS was contracted by the USAID Transparent, Effective, and Accountable
Municipalities (USAID TEAM) to disseminate in this report the findings on the procurement activities related to four distinct municipal service provision plans. Kosovo continues to face structural challenges that hinder development and the quality of life of citizens. The country is still engaged in a complex state-building process, erecting its structures and building its services. One of the most pressing challenges is a distinctive lack of transparency and accountability with regards to public expenditures and public service provision of central and local governments. As a self-entitled ‘Newborn’ country, it is the task of civil society organizations (CSOs) to mobilize all citizens and state actors towards a higher demand for information and results as well as a more active monitoring of service delivery and law implementation.

Increasing efficiency and transparency of the public procurement system is a constant concern of Kosovo society and the international community in Kosovo. For this purpose, various projects have been implemented in Kosovo in order to improve the legislation and practices concerning public procurement. Despite this, public procurement in Kosovo still remains a sector perceived to be corrupt, inefficient and ineffective in terms of ability to deliver quality services for citizens.
In the framework of cooperation with the USAID Transparent, Efficient and Accountable Municipalities activity (USAID TEAM), Democracy Plus has undertaken the initiative of monitoring five municipalities including Prishtina/Priština, Gjilan/Gnjilane, Peja/Peć, Gjakova/Djakovica and Vushtrri/Vučitrn. This monitoring focused on two main components:
• Monitoring procurement activities with the purpose of exposing violations of the law, losses, and allegations ofcorruption, and;
• Identifying and sharing good practices in public procurement manage-ment.
To this end, since September 2017, D+ has conducted a baseline assessment of these municipalities, developed a report on measuring good practices, and published this third report, identifying public procurement violations with data from direct monitoring.
This monitoring was conducted based on the methodology adapted by D+, which included direct monitoring of bid eval-uations, monitoring of tender documents, and monitoring of contract enforcement by directly observing work in the field and checking documents on contract execution. The findings of monitoring were shared with the respective municipalities, to enable them to provide their comments, as a means of validating the data. On some of the findings of the report, D+ and the mu-nicipality failed to share a common view. Therefore, this report also presents the monitoring findings and comments from municipalities.

Following the ‘’Baseline Report’’1 prepared by Democracy Plus (D+) in December 2017 for five targeted municipalities of Kosovo, D+ has since then been designing a set of benchmarking indicators, cooperating with municipal procurement officials and preparing the first cycle of the ‘’Benchmarking Report’’ to better assess the performance of Prishtina/ Priština, Gjakova/Djakovica, Vushtrri/Vućitrna, Gjilan/Gnjilane and Peja/ Peć in public procurement. The report covers the period from January 2017 – February 2018, focusing and highlighting best practices, irregularities, violations and the main developments in public procurement
at the local level. The aim is to assess to which extent the municipalities are operating according to the law, as well as to encourage officials to share good practices of public procurement.
Indicators and research methods were set according to our
methodology regarding the monitoring process of public procurement. In order to identify irregularities and municipalities’ best practices in the most accurate of ways, D+ prepared a questionnaire for procurement officials to assess performance in public procurement (see Annex 1). The aim of the ”Benchmarking Report” is twofold. It first of all shows comparable data on municipal public procurement practices and performances across five municipalities, and also provides insightful information not only for the public, but in particular for private companies and procurement regulatory bodies such as the National Audit Office (NAO), Public Procurement Regulatory Commission (PPRC), Procurement Review Body (PRB) and the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA). The findings in this report were collected through the qualitative and quantitative questionnaire, individual interviews and general discussions related to public procurement system in Kosovo, secondary sources from the independent public procurement institutions and private companies.
The municipalities were compared and analyzed based on the following indicators, for which the reasoning/importance is further explained in the report:
1 Implementation of law
2 Good Practices
3 Implementation of the
recommendations from oversight
institutions
4 Transparency
5 Competition
6 Civic engagement

This reports covers developments between October 2017 – October 2018, although some cases/procurement procedures discussed in the report began before this time period. BIRN reported those cases in this report because they are only now beginning to piece together a more complete picture of what happened in those cases. This is the third consecutive report from BIRN Kosovo and Internews Kosova (I/KS) on public procurement monitoring, produced for the purpose of monitoring procurement activities in the Republic of Kosovo. Besides looking at public documents, this report also includes records of legal violations published on KALLXO.com, the anti-corruption platform of both BIRN Kosovo and I/KS. These reports have been addressed and published on KALLXO.com and BIRN Kosovo’s other media
platforms. The report also analyzes the transparency of contracting authorities (CA) with the public, with regard to access to information, in particular regarding public procurement. According to the law that guarantees access to public documents, BIRN Kosovo and I/ KS submitted a total of 69 requests to the contracting authorities From the requests submitted, BIRN Kosovo and I/KS received 55 responses, many of which did not fulfill BIRN Kosovo’s requests. Therefore, BIRN Kosovo has evaluated that information and documents on public procurement are partially accessible. It is worth mentioning that some contracting authorities responded within the day, and some others did not respect the legal time frame.

Over the past few years, the Government of Kosovo has improved the management and transparency of public expenditure by incorporating EU directives for public procurement1 into the legal and regulatory framework, increasing public participation2, building training programs, 3 and launching an electronic procurement platform.4 This latter reform, in particular, has introduced new levels of transparency into the procurement process.