15.1.2012 by CrniLabudovi.

The bechtel gangster system

Road to Ruin

An unnecessary highway in Kosovo could bankrupt Europe’s poorest state.

by Andrea Lorenzo Capussela 13 January 2012Kosovo is building a four-lane highway that will stretch for about 105 kilometers (65 miles) from the capital city of Pristina south to the border with Albania, where it will join a newly built highway to Tirana and the Adriatic port of Durres. The project is estimated to cost more than 1 billion euros, or 25 percent of Kosovo’s 2010 GDP.

Much has been written on this unnecessary and unaffordable highway, which reveals fundamental weaknesses in Kosovo’s governance and international supervision.

Workers prepare a southern segment of the highway, near the border with Albania.

There is no discernible economic rationale for this project, dubbed the “Patriotic Highway.” Trade between Kosovo and Albania is minimal: according to the national statistics office, in the last five years less than 3 percent of Kosovo’s imports came from Albania, and around 12 percent of its (few) exports were sent there. Nor is it a favored transport route: only around 5 percent of imports reach Kosovo via Albania, and total traffic flow follows a similar pattern. The link to Durres is intended to attract trade that now flows through the Greek port of Thessaloniki, but the Albanian port is much smaller and prone to silting up.

Economic integration between ethnically connected Albania and Kosovo will certainly grow. But that integration could have been boosted by improvements to the existing two-lane road, at a fraction of the cost. Little wonder that private investors steered clear.

The government undertook the highway without having planned it, studied its feasibility, or lined up the financing. The only reason for building it lies in its name: it is an act of patriotism.

And an unaffordable one: the program that Kosovo agreed to with the IMF in June 2010 was effectively an attempt to save Kosovo’s budget from the weight of this huge expenditure. The attempt failed, and the fate of the budget remains uncertain.

In deciding to build this highway, the government risks a fiscal crisis. It has had to cut other much-needed and more productive capital expenditure – in the failing education system, for instance. The project is also absorbing money that could have been channeled to the private sector instead, to stimulate sustainable growth.

To underline the gravity of all this, recall that in Kosovo unemployment is 45 percent, 75 percent among the youth, and that 45 percent of its people live in poverty, 13 percent in extreme poverty – they can’t afford to buy enough food to stay healthy.

This project was also badly implemented, starting with a seriously flawed procurement process in which the bids could not be compared according to objective criteria. The runner-up, Austria’s Strabag, offered a 1.3 billion euro fixed price for the whole highway (approximately 140 kilometers, from the border with Serbia to the border with Albania), whereas the winner – a consortium formed by the U.S.-based Bechtel corporation and a smaller Turkish company, Enka – offered a variable price for the segment running from Pristina to the Albanian border.

In addition, the construction contract was negotiated after the winning bidder had been chosen, when the negotiating power of the government was lowest. Indeed, during negotiations the estimated price rose by more than 60 percent, from about 400 million to 659 million euros, and the contract proposed by Bechtel-Enka contains very punitive clauses for the government that were not envisioned in the tender rules, according to an analysis by the Pristina Insight newspaper (no link available).

Indeed, the transaction adviser retained by the government, the UK law firm Eversheds, deemed the Bechtel-Enka contract “not compliant” with the tender rules, one-sided, “extremely dangerous,” and “nothing more than a non-binding estimate.”

The firm’s advice, which cost a reported 1.7 million euros, was ignored and in April 2010 the agreement was signed.

But during negotiations for assistance, Pristina had to show the contract to the IMF and World Bank. And a mere two months after having announced a price of 659 million euros, the government accepted a World Bank estimate of at least 1 billion euros for the highway’s total cost – slightly above the per-kilometer price of Strabag’s bid, and subject to increase through design revisions, extra costs, or penalties. In fact, a few weeks after signing the contract, the government acknowledged in a memorandum to the IMF that “the highway contract may not adequately protect the budget from cost overruns, while construction delays would trigger non-negligible penalties and cost increases.”

With such a contract, the final price effectively depends on Bechtel-Enka’s judgment on, for instance, how much gravel, asphalt, or cement will be needed, or how difficult the terrain proves to be. For that reason, the contract provides that the government can closely supervise the construction works, to check, for example, how much cement is needed, how much is actually used, of what quality and at what cost. Yet while work began in April 2010, it was only in August 2011 that the government hired a company to supervise it. In the meantime, Kosovo’s press reported, the government might have been overcharged for cement.

So how high the price will rise is a matter of speculation, and the precedents are not encouraging.

Bechtel-Enka also built part of the Albanian segment of the highway, under a similar open-price contract. The initial estimate was 418 million euros; the final price, close to 1 billion. Like Kosovo, Albania did no feasibility study on the highway and is having trouble meeting its cost. Tirana recently declared that it doesn’t have the capacity to maintain the road.

In Romania, Bechtel won the 2004 contract for a 415-kilometer highway, this time without a public tender. As of August, 54 kilometers had been constructed at a cost of 1.3 billion euros, nearly 60 percent of the budget for the entire project. The government took years to renegotiate the contract and eventually cut its losses. In a revised deal, Bechtel will build 60 more kilometers and be paid of a total of 3.8 billion euros. The rest of the highway will be tendered again.

Unlike Albania and Romania, however, Kosovo is under international supervision.

Its supervisor – the International Civilian Office, led by Pieter Feith, who at the time of the tender was also the EU Special Representative in Kosovo – has broad authority that includes economic and fiscal matters. In parallel, the EU has sent to Kosovo a rule-of-law mission, EULEX, which also has executive powers to fight high-level corruption.

The IMF, the European Commission, and the World Bank had serious concerns about the highway and raised them with the government. As director of the ICO’s economics unit, I shared those concerns and discussed them several times with Kosovo’s economy and finance minister. When it became clear that the government was taking little note of such criticism, I asked Feith to take a strong stance with the prime minister.

…………….

http://www.tol.org/client/article/22939-road-to-ruin.html

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15.1.2012 by ctstmaser.

In Kosovo, a student outcry about Pristina University professors

14/01/2012

The student parliament charges Pristina University academic staff with absenteeism, saying it undermines both the quality of education and university standards.

By Safet Kabashaj for Southeast European Times in Pristina — 14/01/12

Pristina University professors are absent significant periods of time on the job, according to research conducted by the university’s student parliament.

The research identified 83 academic staff members who consistently missed lectures they were scheduled to deliver, exams, student consultation sessions and other activities.

Data shows professors who are concurrently active in both politics and academia have the worst record, student parliament leader Mentor Hasani said. The data is being discussed at length on several Kosovo blogs by Hasani and other students.

Some of the most senior officials — such as Justice Minister Hajredin Kuqi, who is a law faculty lecturer — and Economic Development Minister Besim Beqaj, top the list, according to Hasani.

“If they continue to be absent, we will take other steps in stopping this approach, which is damaging academic quality, damaging students’ education as well as [wasting] the Kosovo budget,” he added.

The student parliament plans to present the results to university administrators as a means of improving professors’ accountability.

The professors tried to put pressure on the Kosovo media, according to Hasani, but the research results were published, ensuing in a widespread public debate on the quality of instruction and services, low academic criteria and allegations of unqualified staff, and student registry irregularities.

Kosovo MP and Constitutional Law and Philosophy Professor Arsim Bajrami is a rare professor who publicly commented, saying the students should verify the data before publishing it.

“I am forced to consider as completely incorrect the results of the questionnaire, which supposedly alludes to my absence in the academic process,” Bajrami said, adding he has encouraged students to actively participate in the university process.

Lavdime argues the situation in academia reflects the country’s overall environment. “It is indicative of Kosovo’s post-war values,” she said.

Among the proposals to improve the situation is the one by Mirsie, who suggests that to overcome systemic abuse at the university, the institution must start from scratch.

“Pristina University should be dissolved for one or two years, and start from the beginning, in order to be able to achieve results,” she said.

Some commentators suggest legal sanctions for what they describe as the professors’ disregard for academia. Curbing the practice of professors with links to political parties holding several jobs concurrently, Daut argues it is necessary to adopt a law that would “limit one person [to] one job”.

Others, like Ardian, are against officials holding academic positions altogether. “All these personalities exercising high office duties should resign their university jobs. It is shameless the way the justice minister and the constitutional court president violate basic legal and moral principles.”

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Ekonomiksi1 speaks for those who contest the research and charge the authors with political interference. “The student parliament manipulated with questionnaires that it distributed through the faculties, and I do not trust this because there are political interests in the background.”

Flamur argues professors are not the only ones at fault. “Students are responsible and should be blamed for this, because of their lack of courage [to react in a timely manner]. Remember the courage of students in the 1980s and their actions for change in the former Yugoslavia.”

“Students should be happy not to see and hear some professors. Simply, they do not deserve to be seen and heard,” Bardh Sokoli said with irony.

Still others like Ilir contest the credibility of the students themselves. “How many illiterate students have graduated? How many are involved in student organisations? How many enrolled there without fulfilling the criteria?”

http://setimes.com/cocoon

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