Tender in August, medical equipment in 2026!

From Erion Dasho

In the middle of the heat of August, the Ministry of Health announces a tender worth 2.5 million euros for the purchase of medical equipment. All standard and necessary equipment which is essential today for the provision of basic health care.

At first glance, a normal procedure, if it were not about the deadlines for the delivery of the equipment. Equipment with a total value of 2.5 million euros will be purchased for a period of 3 years, about 500 thousand euros in 2024 and from 1 million euros in 2025 and 2026.

There can be no greater shame!

The state that gives in one year almost 50 million euros to PPP oligarchs, divides the tender for the purchase of some equipment that is part of routine health care into three years! I repeat, worth only 2.5 million euros!!!

While the oligarchs cannot wait, the patients and the citizens must!

In certain years, only the check-up concession has received millions of euros per year for incomplete analyses, as the Supreme State Audit found. Over 2 million euros per year, only the annual profit of this unnecessary concession is reported.

A similar value is guaranteed every year to the sterilization concession by the addition of the contract made by Manastirliu and which also included, in an unnecessary and unjustified way, microsurgeries in the concession contract.

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If the Albanian state still has control mechanisms, this August tender carried out by the health authorities should be investigated with the investigator's magnifying glass. Here are some of the reasons:

Why should this tender be carried out in the middle of August, when most of the firms are on vacation?

If a tender conducted in August can be justified by an urgent situation, for example, the purchase of consumables or medicines, why urgently buy scanners that will be installed in 2025 and 2026?!

In conditions where technology is moving fast and prices are falling even faster, why should a scanner device be tendered today that will be sold only in 2026?!

These questions are enough to open the "game", as in such tenders, it is not uncommon for "specifications to be sewn by ustallars" to predetermine the winner, funds are inflated, etc. Even for such potential problems, it should be investigated by experts in the field.

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Apparently, one year was not enough for Albanians to learn the name of Borat of health, but it was enough for her and her entourage to learn how the "August tenders" are carried out.

I wish that, if this country still has control mechanisms left, these procedures that are not only related to taxpayers' money, but primarily to the health and lives of Albanians, will be investigated.