“Investigations into the concession of surgical sterilizations in hospitals have not yet been closed, but are nearing completion,” the Special Prosecutor's Office told the Voice of America today.
Asked by the Voice of America about the progress of the investigations into the sterilization, SPAK officially confirmed that the investigations into this matter are currently nearing completion, but are still ongoing and not finished.
The investigations are focused on the procedures for granting the concession of 100 million euros for 10 years, following suspicions of abuse of office, fraud and falsification of documents.
SPAK has been arresting the Deputy Minister of Health Klodian Rrjepaj and the businessman Ilir Rrapaj for 7 months, while holding the former Minister of Health, Ilir Beqaj, as a person under investigation.
Since August last year, when it arrested former deputy minister Rrjepaj and businessman Rrapaj, SPAK is investigating suspected violations in the procedures of the concession for the sterilization of surgical instruments in state hospitals, which was awarded to the company SaniService as the winner from the Ministry of Health in December 2015, i.e. over 8 years ago.
Rrjepaj is suspected of abuse of office and falsification of documents in cooperation, while Rrapaj, the businessman who won the concession, was arrested under suspicion of fraud with serious consequences.
While 6 officials and experts, also members of the bid evaluation commission, are also under the same accusations of falsification of documents and misuse of duties.
The Special Court of First Instance for Corruption and Organized Crime directed the SPAK to expand the investigations for the former Minister of Health, Ilir Beqaj, the former Minister of Finance, Shkëlqim Cani, as well as 4 other officials, who have having knowledge of this concession, if they have committed a legal violation.
The former health minister, Ilir Beqaj, is also under investigation for abuse of office, who appears every Friday at SPAK for questions and other communications, while he was banned from traveling abroad.
He is being investigated for abuse of office, while the Special Court has assessed that there is a suspicion, based on the criminal facts, that Mr. Beqaj has used elements of forging stamps and forms and that he was fully aware of all the procedures and documents. where false data related to project costs was allowed to be reflected in the feasibility study and then the concession was chosen as a more favorable procedure than public procurement.
Mr. Beqaj has not accepted the accusations, while the investigations speak of inflation in the calculations of sterilization costs, which he is suspected to have tolerated as a minister and did not intervene to cancel them.
The former minister allegedly did not take measures to put the State Sterilization Center into operation, nor did he assess whether the operation of that center, without passing it to the concessionaire, would be more economically profitable than the Public-Private Partnership contract, which provides custom sterilization of surgical equipment.
Mr. Beqaj is suspected of not having acted to avoid the conflict of interest between his deputy Klodian Rrjepaj and businessman Ilir Rrapaj, who had known each other for a long time.
In February, the Special Prosecutor's Office seized some assets of businessman Ilir Rrapaj, 40 percent of the shares of the SaniService company, two companies where he is a shareholder, two bank accounts, 13 vehicles and a residential apartment.
In the coming days, it remains to be seen the progress of the investigations on the case, which was initially registered three years ago by the SPAK as a proceeding on the concession granted by the Ministry of Health for medical sterilizations, which includes the criminal offenses “Abuse of duty” in cooperation, “Violation of the equality of participants in public tenders or auctions” in cooperation, as well as “Passive corruption of high state officials”, some of which are not seen so far in the charges against the suspects under arrest.