The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) has initiated an investigation against five Croatian citizens and one company for criminal offences of abuse of office and authority, as well as aiding and abetting the abuse of office and authority.
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Among the suspects are two officials of the City of Rijeka as well as the person responsible for the company under investigation, for which undue pecuniary gain is believed to have been obtained.
All five suspects were arrested yesterday, 4 April 2023, at the EPPO’s request.
Based on the results of the preliminary investigative activities and the criminal report of Croatia’s National Police Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (Policijski nacionalni Ured za suzbijanje korupcije i organiziranog kriminaliteta), the EPPO has now officially initiated an investigation.
The two officials of the City of Rijeka, as well as the person responsible for the municipal company co-owned by the City of Rijeka, are suspected of executing a number of activities in order to ensure that the private company, owned by another suspect, was chosen to carry out works as part of a project to construct a waste-sorting plant, located at MihaÄeva Draga, at unreasonably inflated prices.
The value of the project is €3 684 015.77 (HRK 27 757 216.80), co-funded by the European Union’s Cohesion Fund (Operational Programme Competitiveness and Cohesion 2014–2020), at a rate of 85% of eligible costs.
The officials under investigation initiated two calls for proposals for the development of the project documentation required for the construction project of the waste-sorting plant.
Both calls for proposals are believed to have been organised in order to favour a company previously chosen, giving the appearance that it presented the most favourable bid.
After the conclusion of the contracts for the development of the project documentation, the officials under investigation allowed the chosen company to design part of the documentation pertaining to the construction of the sorting plant, and to set the prices for all works necessary, to establish the estimated price of the planned public procurement.
In this way, the company under investigation was given a privileged position, compared to other interested economic operators, and the price of all the works was unreasonably inflated by at least €506 561.82 (HRK 3 816 690.00).
In addition, after the open public procurement procedure was published, the suspected company was given the possibility of answering questions for clarification, and of making amendments to the procurement documentation requested by the interested economic operators namely related to technical issues.
These answers were supposed to create the impression that there were technical reasons for the use of questionable machinery and related technology, and to hide the obvious favouritism towards the suspected company.
In so doing, it is understood that the officials under investigation ignored all the warnings of their colleagues, who pointed out the inadmissibility of the answers in question, and the possible consequences for the City of Rijeka and all the persons involved, including administrative and criminal sanctions.
The evaluation of the bids was also allegedly organised so that the one from the suspected company was chosen, with the price of €3 564 208.10 (HRK 26 854 525.94) without VAT, and €4 455 260.13 (HRK 33 568 157.43) with VAT which was unreasonably inflated by at least €506 561.82 (HRK 3 816 690.00).
This amount represents an undue pecuniary gain for that company, as well as damages to the EU’s Cohesion Fund and to the national budget of the Republic of Croatia.
The EPPO will propose to the investigating judge of the County Court in Zagreb an order of pre trail detention against the five suspects.
In addition to the above, the EPPO proposed to the investigating judge the imposition of a temporary measure of confiscation of proceeds, by blocking the bank account of the suspected company. ■