The State Commission for the Prevention of Corruption has launched a corruption probe into the oversight of Corridor 8 and 10 highway construction.

IRD Engineering won North Macedonia’s tender to oversee the construction work on the pan-European corridors, and three other companies were chosen as subcontractors.

The country’s anticorruption team will be looking into allegations that one of the subcontractors, the Spanish company Eptisa, had been banned from participating in public procurements due to misconduct but was picked nonetheless after the government lifted the ban ahead of the tender deadline.

Katica Nikolovska, a member of the State Commission for the Prevention of Corruption, said they were starting the process of collecting documents.

“Given the fact this is an enormous tender of great value, it is worth waiting for this documentation. Additionally, it will take us some time to analyze it. These are foreign companies, which limits our investigation to a point. If we need to, we will try to find additional data,” Nikolovska told Sitel on Thursday evening.

Earlier on Thursday, VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski claimed that Eptisa was owned by a Chinese company since 2016.

On Wednesday, the Bechtel and Enka consortium signed an EUR 1.3 billion contract with the State Roads Public Enterprise for the construction of four highway sections of Corridors 8 and 10.

The construction on the Tetovo – Gostivar; Gostivar – Bukojchani; and Prilep – Bitola highway sections should begin on April 22, and on the Trebenishta – Struga – Kjafasan section on Dec. 12.