Today, the Special Public Prosecutor’s Office opened two more investigation, code-named “Toplik” (meaning, sunny place) and “Tenders”.
The “Toplik” investigation refers to the construction of the neighborhood Sun City, which, due to some shortcomings, it resulted in damage to the budget of approximately one million euros after contracts were signed.
For this case, according to the SPO, there is a reasonable doubt that a manager from the Ministry of Transport and Communications and members of the Commission for Public Auction from the same ministry misused their official positions.
“The prime suspect in this case is a manager at the Ministry of Transport and Communications, who together, with five members of the Commission for Public Auction have caused damage to the budget worth up to 1.044.000 euros. There is a reasonable doubt that although the original commission who were at the ministry gave their opinion and said that there were drawbacks and shortcomings to conclude the sale of the state land Soncev Grad (Sun City), then, a second commission was formed. The second commission organized public bidding for the sale of the state land in the newspapers, after which a contract was signed with the company “Sun City”. Once the company realized that there were no conditions for the construction of Sun City, they terminated the contract with the Ministry and asked to be paid the interest at the rate of around one million euros, which directly damaged the budget”, explained prosecutor, Fatime Fetai.
The second investigation, “Tenders”, refers to an agreement between the Ministry of Culture and the company “Beton” from Stip to carry out construction work on the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle for Sovereignty and Independence, Museum of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and the Museum of the Victims of Communist Regime .
Construction work on this building was carried out without conducting a public procurement procedure, i.e. the witness, who at the time, was the director of “Beton”, had been verbally informed by a management official from the Ministry of Culture, who was a member of the Procurement Committee, and told them that they could continue with construction work and did not have to wait 20 days to conduct the public procurement procedure.
“The company, “Beton Stip” began construction work without carrying out the necessary procedure, no tendering procedure, and was working with construction when it was published publicly, just to appear formal, and that they were participating in the procedure. The Ministry of Culture to “Beton” as of December 31, 2013, were paid 54,501,336 denars”, stated Fetai.
Three companies have stakes in the Stip construction company “Beton”: Construction Group “TIM”, Stip winery “Ezimit” and “Orka Holding”.
The Stip winery owns a 15.8%, “Orka Holding” 15% and the most, 20.4% in shares wa bought by construction group “TIM” which is connected to the owner of “Lozar Pelisterka”.
