EXCLUSIVE A whistleblower has told G4Media.ro who was going to win a tender of 40 million lei from Prahova County Council for masks and sanitizers in schools / All the competitors of that tender were disqualified

Suspicions of directing to a group of companies a tender of 40 million lei organized by Prahova County Council. The subject of the procedure is the supply of masks and sanitizers for educational establishments in the county, where the money comes from European funds. An integrity whistleblower indicated to G4Media.ro on January 27, 2023, who would be the winner of the tender, although at that time the bids had barely been submitted.

Three months later, the Prahova County Council disqualified all bids competing with the one indicated by the whistleblower. So far, the National Appeals Board has cancelled this tender twice because of discriminatory clauses in the tender specifications. Each time, Prahova County Council has upheld the legality of the tender specifications.

According to data available on the public procurement portal, four bids were submitted to the current procedure, launched in November 2022 by Prahova County Council (the previous ones were cancelled by the National Council for the Settlement of Disputes in June and October 2022): the ADG Medical Supply SRL-NMD Zet Zone SRL-Sinofarm DOO Belgrad association, ATS for Health SRL, Deluxe Medicrafts SRL and the Klintensiv SRL-Virus Protect SRL association. The tender, for which 39.7 million lei have been put up for tender, aims to purchase masks and hand disinfectants to reach 90,292 schoolchildren, teachers and auxiliary staff in 190 educational establishments operating in Prahova County.

Immediately after the submission of bids, on January 27, 2023, an integrity whistleblower sent to a G4Media.ro reporter an email in which he indicated that the procedure will be awarded to the association ADG Medical Supply SRL Bucharest-NMD Zet Zone SRL Bucharest-Sinofarm Belgrade.

Nearly three months later, a key decision of the Prahova County Council’s tender committee indicates that the whistleblower was right: the ADG Medical Supply SRL-NMD Zet Zone SRL-Sinofarm Belgrad joint venture’s bid was declared the winner, while the other three were no longer taken into account for the price estimate, being disqualified on procedural grounds.

Both the whistleblower and the representative of one of the disqualified consortia contest the legality of the Tender Committee’s decision. The former claims that the specifications included a requirement for masks to have four layers, which is extremely rare on the market.

„The only concrete element in the tender specifications that favoured the ADG-NMD Zet Zone-Sinofarm association is the number of layers of the protective masks, i.e. 4 layers (although an Order of the National Agency for Public Procurement -ANAP stipulates that there must be 3 layers). Although other economic operators probably had similar products (although rare, there are medical masks in 4 layers), they were eliminated due to excessive formalities. The outcome should have been only one.”

The whistleblower also noted that medical masks generally have a standard size of 175 x 95 mm, while here they have an „atypical size of 18-19 cm x 8-9 cm”.

For his part, Emil Lungu, procurement director of Klintensiv SRL, which participated in the tender, said his perception is that this tender is „with dedication”.

His company has in the past challenged certain clauses in the tender specifications, and the CNSC agreed with him and ordered the tender to be cancelled twice and removed/corrected.

Specifically, Klintensiv contested the inclusion in a single lot of products – masks and sanitizers – that were different in terms of both the technological manufacturing process and use.

On each occasion, both before the CNSC and the court before which it challenged the annulment of the second tender, Prahova County Council argued that it had complied with the law, saying that grouping in one lot did not restrict the participation of firms, which could join forces with other, similar firms, another argument being that „the products are intended for use within the same administrative unit, in the same location.” The contracting authority also stated that it „duly justified its decision not to carry out the procedure in lots”. All these arguments were rejected.

The President of Prahova County Council, Iulian Dumitrescu, did not respond for two days to G4Media.ro calls and messages.

„The course of the award procedure that began on 18.05.2022 and was annulled twice by the CNSC so that Prahova County Council was forced to „break” the procedure into lots and the desire of Prahova County Council to organize the procedure with a lot consisting of two products with the highest value (39.4 million lei out of 40 million lei) and, in the second lot, only 600. 000 lei (1.5% of practically the entire value), the specifications of the tender specifications that were changed in the third procedure organized, namely the number of layers of medical masks from 3 layers (as provided in the ANAP Order) to 4 layers cannot be just pure coincidence”, said the whistleblower for G4Media.ro.

He added that „It is not unusual that in a tender of this magnitude all bids are disqualified, but it is even unthinkable.”

Although declared the winner, the ADG Medical Supply-NMD Zet Zone-Sinofarm partnership has not yet signed the contract because a new challenge has been filed with the CNSC, also by Klintensiv, which argues that the disqualification of its bid is unlawful.
Data from the Trade Register shows that the sole partner of ADG Medical Supply SRL, leader of the joint venture, is Andrei Constantin Drăghici. He did not contact G4Media.ro after an employee of the company said she would pass on the reporter’s cell phone number.

At NMD Zet Zone SRL, 95% of the shares are held by Marin Alexandru Lazăr, the father-in-law of businessman Ilie Potecaru, a former PPDD candidate for Parliament in 2012, about whom Rise Project wrote in 2017 that he was the beneficiary of some land retrocession in Grozăvești Park ordered by the former mayor of Sector 6, Cristian Poteraș, later sentenced to prison.

„Ilie Potecaru, the protagonist of most of the transactions, invested 150,000 euros in inheritance rights and earned 44 times more: 6.7 million euros,” said the Rise journalists, who added that a company in which he was a partner had received a concession, during Poteraș’s second term, for the removal of cars parked illegally on the streets of Sector 6.

Contacted by G4Media.ro, Potecaru declared that „I would like to inform you that I have been separated from my ex-wife for many years and I do not keep in touch with my ex-father-in-law, I do not know what company/firm he owns, much less that he represents any kind of interests!”

This claim is contradicted by the fact that, since 2019, Ilie Potecaru and Marin Alexandru Lazăr have been co-partners in the company Cooperativa Agricola Brandavo SRL, and last year Potecaru and his son set up Lamed Romania SRL, a company trading in pharmaceutical products that has its registered office in an apartment where the former father-in-law lives.

In early 2022, NMD Zet Zone was awarded one of the lots in the tender through which the National Public Procurement Office bought saliva tests for students returning to classrooms after the pandemic. In that procedure NMD Zet Zone was also part of a joint venture with Sinofarm DOO Belgrade. The Serbian firm is 100% owned by businessman Nikola Sinobad.

„During the pandemic, Sinofarm were among the most important suppliers of medical equipment in Serbia (including masks etc). They have very good contacts in the government and have been very successful in the last two years,” Milorad Ivanovic, an investigative journalist with Balkan Investigative Reporting Network Serbia, told G4Media.ro. Nikola Sinobad and Marin Alexandru Lazăr could not be contacted.

The money for the procedure from CJ Prahova is allocated through Axis No. 10 of the EU Funding Operational Programme for Large Infrastructure (POIM) through the signing of a funding contract by CJ Prahova with the Ministry of European Investment and Projects (MIPE). „After signing the contract and delivering the products, a payment claim or reimbursement request (as appropriate) will be submitted to MIPE for payment of the money or settlement (if it is made from the own budget).

Further, the approved structures within the IMPP Managing Authority verify the procurement file and authorise payments. If there are deviations from the law both during the procurement procedure (i.e. in the tendering process) and during the implementation of the supply contract, the POIM Management Authority may apply financial corrections”, the whistleblower told G4Media.ro.

Translated from Romanian