Criminal Complaint Against Former Acting Head of the Hydrometeorological Service: Two Firms Got Almost Half a Million Euros Through Disputed Procurements

The Interior Ministry's Financial Crime Unit has filed a criminal complaint with the Skopje Basic Public Prosecutor's Office against nine individuals and one company over procurement abuses at the Hydrometeorological Administration (UHMR). Those reported include eight employees of the institution, among them then acting director I.T. (53), the manager of a Bitola company, and a Skopje company reported for forging a document.

According to the Interior Ministry, the two companies were handed an unlawful material gain totalling 30,026,836 denars, or around 488,000 euros. The bulk of it, 29,244,786 denars or around 475,000 euros, went to the Skopje company. The Bitola one, in charge of printing promotional materials and small inventory, received 782,050 denars, around 12,715 euros.

The scheme, as the police describe it, is textbook. In 2023 the acting director made two separate procurement decisions for a single event, at different times, even though he had a specification of the total needs in advance. The procedure was then carried out on the basis of an altered specification broken down into unit quantities. There were no minutes from the opening of the bids and no report on the procedure.

The committee, made up of a chair and two members, according to the complaint, knew that the Skopje company's bid was late and didn't meet the conditions, and that the Bitola one was technically flawed. Still, it recommended a choice based on "lowest price", even though the bidder hadn't offered a price for all the items in the technical specification. A lowest price with no prices is a skill you won't find in any economics textbook.

Internal control, according to the Interior Ministry, didn't stop the payment either. The official who drafted the decision and two others approved it, and then let through an invoice with no supporting evidence and with made-up coefficients. The controller from the Finance Department signed off without the mandatory prior financial check. The Skopje company's manager, who has since died, submitted invoices that matched neither the prices offered nor the scope of services actually delivered.

Those reported are suspected of abuse of official position and authority as co-perpetrators, and the Skopje company of forging a document. A criminal complaint doesn't mean guilt has been established; now it's the prosecutors' move.

The question that remains is the broader one. Both procurements passed through a director, a three-member committee, three people who drafted and approved the decision, and a finance controller. Not one filter reacted. If control in a state institution comes down to signatures nobody reads, how many other invoices with made-up coefficients are waiting for some police officer to open them?