Uncertainties regarding the procurement procedure in the tender for Establishment of a Single Access Point (SAP) for SMEs in Montenegro: Task 1 – Institutional Capacity Building, conducted by the Ministry of Economic Development and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), cannot be clarified, despite a statement from the institution dismissing allegations of alleged misconduct in the process.
Although no one accused the EBRD of “inappropriate actions” but of concealing information about how Fidelity Consulting was selected in the tender, on the basis of which references and about who the members of the tender commission were. The EBRD reiterated that the EBRD’s Access to Information Policy, Section III.2.2.iii, provides that financial, commercial or proprietary information relating to procurement processes, including information provided by bidders during prequalification, tenders, proposals or bids prices, cannot be disclosed due to their confidential nature.
However, in the next paragraph, the EBRD denies itself. Namely, it accurately states the financial information and says that the value of the tender is up to €426,154, with an implementation period of up to 36 months. On the other hand, the Ministry of Economic Development stated in its answers to CdM’s questions that this is a project worth a total of €1,747,000, and CdM clearly emphasized that Fidelity received one of the components of the project.
