Public procurement in Kosovo requires deep structural reform

The need for fundamental changes to the public procurement system in Kosovo was at the center of discussions at a roundtable organized by KDI, where concerns were raised about negotiation procedures and awarded contracts, as issues directly linked to competition and transparency in this field.

Diana Matoshi Krasniqi, coordinator for advocacy and research at KDI, said: “An analysis should be conducted of the efficiency of competition procedures and value assurance, and legal reforms should be proposed that support not only digitalization and modernization but the structural formation of the entire process,”

The panel stressed that, based on experience to date in public procurement, reform oriented toward performance and quality is essential in order to ensure greater transparency and accountability.

Member of the Kosovo Assembly, Eliza Hoxha, said: “Our role today and going forward would be to see how we can improve them; now the first challenge is whether there is political will, the relevant institutions and the horizontal spectrum of other institutions connected to procurement processes, to have a working group on that matter and to have broad inclusion, which is the basic principle of democratic societies,”

Meanwhile, Member of the Kosovo Assembly Janina Ymeri highlighted the budgeting problem, saying: “Budgeting is initially a problem; the budget is stretched so much for a certain project that it is institutional laziness to simply divide a project over four or five years, and this prevents both municipalities and ministries from doing a job properly”,

Pressure from the media and the verdict of citizens’ votes were seen as important elements for increasing accountability and guaranteeing fair and efficient public procurement. However, it was emphasized that real change requires full transparency, continuous oversight, and uncompromising enforcement of the law, in order to build a procurement system that protects the public interest and ensures that every euro of taxpayers’ money is returned in real value to citizens.