After the writings by Fokus: Tender for the purchase of dialyzers in FBiH unblocked!

It seems that the multi-year blockade of the tender for the procurement of dialyzers in the Federation of BiH has come to an end. After the research text of the Fokus.ba portal in February on this blockade, which also has elements of a criminal offence, less than a month later, the Federal Ministry of Health amended the ordinance which kept the implementation of this public procurement under blockade.

WRITTEN BY: A. DUČIĆ

The Rulebook finally entered into force on March 26, the eighth day after the publication of the Amendments to the Rulebook on Conditions Regarding Space, Personnel and Medical-Technical Equipment for Establishment and Organization of Work of Health Institutions Performing Dialysis, in the “Official Gazette of FBiH”. Now it is the turn of the FBiH Health Insurance and Reinsurance Institute (ZZOIR) to re-announce the tender, which has been under blockade for two years.

Namely, the Ministry of Health removed the blockade in the Rulebook, which ordered that dialyzers be procured from two different manufacturers. There is no longer a need to procure dialysis supplies from at least two different suppliers.

As we announced, on December 27, 2016, the Health Insurance Institute of the FBiH successfully implemented the procedure for the procurement of dialyzers for the last time. Since then, there have been a number of tender failures at sessions of the BiH Complaints Review Office. The complaints were mostly filed by Melcom, a distributor for Fresenius Medical Care (FMC).

Blockades of tenders have led to the fact that companies representing Fresenius Medical Care BiH, including Melcom doo from Mostar, since 2016, that is, according to a tender conducted then, sell dialyzers of this company at disproportionately high prices.

This has led to multimillion losses in the Federation, as dialyzer prices in the FBiH are three times higher for some dialysis models than in Serbia and Croatia, for example.

Since September 2019, after the decision of the Complaints Review Office, the Health Insurance Institute has repeatedly asked the Federal Ministry of Health to issue the necessary opinion requested by the Complaints Review Office in order to harmonize the tender with the material regulation, but without success. Despite the eight urgencies of the Institute, that did not happen! This was not done even after last year's intervention by Transparency International BiH. This year, after our writing, and later additional interventions by TIBiH, the inspection got involved in the whole story.

On the other hand, the Bureau itself additionally “concluded the tender” in terms of financial and economic capacity, so it asked the potential bidder that “the amount of total turnover in the period for which it submitted a statement could not be less than twice the estimated value of the lot, and if it offers a bid for several lots, the amount of the total turnover may not be less than twice the amount of the collected estimated value of the lots it offers”.

Thus, as we have announced, the tender is additionally “locked” for only selected wholesalers that have previously realized jobs in the field of dialysis, which is essentially announced only by the contracting authority, that is, the Health Insurance Institute for the FBiH. Due to this requirement, many large wholesalers supplying the market with medicines and medical devices cannot qualify for tender and offer dialyzers from many manufacturers registered with the BiH Medicines and Medical Devices Agency, which is discriminatory.

Medin Okić, director of the Sarajevo company CEE-MED, a company that did not appear in the tenders for dialyzers, due to the impossible conditions that were set, commented for Fokus on the shift in this story.

– We are glad that things have finally started from the deadlock. However, what is worrying is that such a simple thing has been waiting for almost three years. We expect ZZOIR to create tender documentation in accordance with the Law on Public Procurement, that is, to enable active and fair competition as the basic principle of the public procurement system – said Okić.

He says that in the previous public procurement procedures for the same or similar type of goods, ZZOIR, in addition to the restrictions provided by the Rulebook, also set very high conditions in terms of economic and financial capacity. He added that the set conditions could be fulfilled only by certain companies, from year to year.

– Unjustified setting of a high threshold regarding economic and financial capacity prevents the participation of those bidders who have just started work or, also, bidders who have turnover in multimillion amounts but do not have the procurement of dialysis materials because it procures for all dialysis centres only ZZOIRFBiH. Although ZZOIR has other mechanisms by which it can ensure the fulfilment of contracts, it does not use them. In that regard, we hope that when creating future procurements of dialysis consumables, they will act more transparently, and enable the participation of all potential bidders with their procurements – said Okić.