Autoceste FBiH accepted a more expensive offer: Who enabled Bosman to get the road maintenance job

JP Autoceste FBiH, headed by Đenan Salčin (SBB), awarded the consortium of private companies “Bosman” and “Dobojputevi” the job of maintaining highways in FBiH for the next four years, although their offer was more than 3 million KM more expensive than the offer from the state-owned company Sarajevoputevi, writes the BiH news agency Patria. The value of the consortium’s offer is 16 million KM.

As confirmed to the Patria agency, representatives of Sarajevoputevi will review the documentation on Monday, to which they are entitled, and there are indications that the documentation of the Bosman-Dobojputevi consortium has numerous deficiencies.

Our source from Sarajevoputevi states that Bosman does not have the A+ license required for highway maintenance, even though the tender required all participating partners to have a license.

Sarajevoputevi announced that they will use all legal remedies to fully clarify this case.

- There were certain pressures from certain individuals, and it is not excluded that we will hand over the case to the investigative authorities - stated Sarajevoputevi, and they have filed a complaint with Autoceste FBiH.

- If they do not respond within five days or do not act on the request, we have the right to appeal to the Public Procurement Agency.

This is the second time that Bosman, with some company in a consortium, has taken a job from Sarajevoputevi. The first case occurred in 2014, when the Directorate of Roads of Sarajevo Canton, headed by the then director Adem Zolj (SDA), awarded the job to the Bosman – Prijedorputevi (RS) consortium, worth 4 million KM, for the maintenance of the Ilidža-Blažuj rapid road. That contract is still valid, although there are numerous objections to the maintenance of this road.

Zolj currently holds the position of Executive Director for General, Personnel, and Legal Affairs at Autoceste FBiH.

Namely, in 2014, Zolj awarded the job to this consortium even though none of the tender documentation criteria were met.

The Law on Roads of FBiH clearly states that “if multiple bidders participate in the bid (joint venture), the leading partner must satisfy a minimum of 80 percent of the conditions of its business capacity, i.e., experience in performing the same types of regular road maintenance works”, which Bosman does not meet.

- The bidder must have an average annual realization of these works in the last five years - it is stated, among other things, in the law, which is also not a reference that Bosman meets.

The director of JP Autoceste FBiH, Đenan Salčin, did not respond to numerous calls from the Patria agency, and we were deprived of more details about this suspicious tender and the awarding of the job to the Bosman-Dobojputevi consortium.