The Ministry of Interior has indications of abuse of office in public procurement procedures of three thousand pairs of police boots from the “Pinko Kiril” company, worth 15 million denars, for which two accredited laboratories have found that they do not meet the requirements of the technical specification of the Ministry of Interior, the Minister of Interior, Nake Culev said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The entire procedure for public procurement of boots for police officers, according to Culev, was done during the term of former Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski. The Ministry of Interior issued the call in early 2016, when three bids arrived, of which “Pinko Kiril” was selected and the contract set a deadline of 60 days for the boots to be delivered, stating that if they are not delivered within the agreed deadline, the contract is terminated and the bank guarantee is activated.

The delivery deadline was not respected, the contract was not terminated, and the bank guarantee not was activated, but the procedure for delivery of the boots continued in the next phase, said Minister Culev.

They made it clear that upon the request of the MoI expert services to control the quality of the boots, two accredited laboratories, one of which is foreign, concluded that there were deviations in four criteria, ie parameters.

Meanwhile, Minister Culev explained, the then Assistant Minister provided Spasovski with information on the entire procedure which listed the omissions, after which the previous Minister of Interior, however, gave directions the contract not to be terminated and the boots to be delivered.