The public will be appalled by the madness of the government and its degree of lucidity and criminalization, VMRO-DPMNE Secretary-General Igor Janusev said recently, announcing that the Racket case will have several sequels, as the party is daily receiving information on affairs, people’s testimonies of pressures and threats, of corruption in all echelons with documents, facts, personal testimonies…
The prosecution has remained deaf to the second sequel to “Racket”, in which Health Minister Venko Filipce and HIF director Dan Doncev prevented the sale of “Diadem” to a Swedish firm for personal gain, preventing a foreign investor to invest 11 million euros in Macedonia.
Filipce also plays the lead role in the “Racket 3” affair
Recently, when Orce Kamcev testified about “Racket” in cross-examination, defendant Bojan Jovanovski revealed for the first time to the public that they both had a meeting with the Minister of Health.
Now, the “Racket 3” affair, in fact, raises serious suspicions that behind the delay of the construction of the Stip Clinical Hospital is the racketeering of Macedonian businessmen, the takeover of a domestic company (“Beton Stip”) with its deliberate pushing into bankruptcy and then buying it under the real price. All of this is compounded by the allocation of additional budget funds, without penalty for the contractor, although deeply delayed with realization, which opens the possibility and suspicion of new lucrative backgrounds.
Why is there no Clinical Center yet?
On March 3, 2016, the then VMRO-DPMNE government laid the foundation stone for the construction of a new clinical center in Stip, which was to be completed by the end of 2019. The 34,000-square-meter clinical center was to operate and meet the needs of over 200,000 people in that region of Macedonia. The construction work, commissioned by the European Commission, is entrusted to the Greek company “Intrakat”.
Since SDSM came to power, construction activities have been halted for a long time. In early February 2019, Health Minister Venko Filipce said that the Greek construction company “Intrakat” terminated the contract with its subcontractor (Beton Stip) and requested an extension of the construction deadline.
The deadline was first extended to early 2020, and the current deadline for completion of the construction started in 2015 is 2021, and instead of the estimated 30 million euros for construction, it will cost the citizens 37 million.
Namely, these days, the Minister of Health has asked the government for another 7 million euros for the construction of the hospital, which, although the deadline has been extended again, has not received any compensation from the contractor. The contractor, the Greek company “Intrakat”, is now demanding extra money with the explanation that the mechanical and electrical design of the interior of the building will cost as much due to overcoming previously designed technologies.
When Filipce had previously extended the one-year deadline for construction, he did not activate the money left as a bank guarantee, although it is required by law
The subcontractor of the construction works was the company “Beton Stip”. On November 9, 2018, the SPO opened an investigation under the name “Empire” against the owners of “Beton Stip”, and shortly before that, it was found that the Greek company “Intrakat” owes subcontractor “Beton Stip” about 2m euros. “Intrakat” received the money from the state for the construction of a Clinical Center but refuses to pay some of it to “Beton Stip”, which is liable to the subcontractor which, due to its large debt, is unable to pay its workers, materials for work, as well as the companies that work for them on that building.
This is the reason for the later termination of the cooperation between “Intrakat” and “Beton Stip”.
After the cessation of work by “Beton Stip”, the project management and “Intrakat” agree with “Beton Stip” partners to continue working on the building independently, regardless of their binding contracts with “Beton Stip”.
Immediately after the arrest of Orce Kamcev, Intrakat’s director, Dimitrios Koutras, pushed Beton Stip to be sold to Intrakat for 1.2 million euros, far below the company’s value.
After this proposal was rejected, “Beton Stip” went bankrupt on July 2, 2019.
The suspicions, which the media alarmed about, are that “Intrakat”, backed by the government, deliberately destroyed “Beton Stip” after failing to buy it at a dumping price.
“Vecer” reported that when it won the tender, “Intrakat” submitted a bank guarantee of 3.5 million euros to the Ministry of Health, but the bank guarantee was from “Beton Stip”! This means that after the termination of the contract between Intrakat and Beton Stip the bank guarantee before the Ministry of Health does not apply, and Intrakat must withdraw it and return it to Beton Stip and give its own. In such a case either a new tender is called or, if it does not submit guarantee, Minister Venko Filipce is obliged to terminate the tender agreement and to request financial compensation from Intrakat, but he has not done so.
According to information from the companies that worked for “Beton Stip”, Vecer finds out that their engagement went through Trajce Zaev. “Intrakat” is also linked to former Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski and his Minister of Civil Engineering Ljupco Balkovski, who is the director of the project unit.
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