MOSTAR PARKING CANCELLED THE TENDER Application is still collecting users’ data, new contract hasn’t been signed

The attempt to procure Services of modernization and improvement of the parking payment system through the public tender, which was attempted by the public city company Mostar parking, was cancelled. The cancellation date is December 21, 2023, and the notice on cancellation of the tender was published on January 16, 2024.

The services of modernization and improvement of the parking payment system entailed lease and maintenance of a software platform to support the business processes of the parking service, fee collection and control of hourly parking tickets via SMS service and WebPay service.

Lanaco was hired through a direct agreement, contract was never disclosed

It is known that the job in 2023 was done by the company Lanaco from Banjaluka for only BAM 6.000. The only thing that the public has never seen is the contract between the parking company from Mostar and IT Company from Banjaluka.

The tendering has raised certain suspicions from the beginning. Since it was known that Lanaco had charged only BAM 6.000 for development of the application and maintenance in 2023, it is surprising that this item was initially included in the 2024 procurement plan of this company with a planned budget of BAM 35.000 for one year, thus BAM 29.000 more for the same or similar service.

Through a new modification of the procurement plan for 2024 and 2025, which was already reported by us, Mostar parking intended to pay BAM 50.000 for the same service, i.e. BAM 25.000 a year, which is BAM 19.000 per year more than what they had paid for 2023.  

However, it is not only the price that had raised suspicion among the professionals and the ordinary citizens. It was peculiar that a city company from Mostar announced the tender in a mix of Serbian and Croatian language, and software experts have confirmed for Hercegovina.info that the required certificates, such as ISO 20000, ISO 27001, ISO 22301, ISO 22237 and ISO 25010 are not clearly associated with the subject of procurement, which relates to the lease and maintenance of a software solution. 

There is no contract, the application is working

It should be recalled that Mostar parking had at the beginning of last year signed a contract with Lanaco through a direct agreement. Since the entry into the force of the contract on January 4, 2023, which Lanaco confirmed, none of the city councilors or the interested media have seen that contract. 
Having in mind that the beginning of contract’s validity is known, the main question is its duration, namely the expiration date and the mode in which its extension was regulated. 

The application GoParking is still working on January 18, 2024 and it can be used to buy parking tickets. We have sent an inquiry to Mostar parking about how a company without a valid contract can, as a third party, charge for the parking and have insight into personal and bank information of the parking spaces’ users in Mostar?

We have also asked them to provide us with the contract with Lanaco for 2023 in line with the Access to Information Act.

Mostar parking decided that they are not obligated to present the contract to the public, and have provided the following answer:

“The contract with the company Lanaco, all important elements concerning its conclusion, as well as all the other details assumed by the Public Procurement Law, were defined and publicly available through the procurement procedure. Therefore, the public has been informed about the contents of the contract with the company Lanaco under all necessary frameworks in which our obligation exists”. 

Why was the procurement procedure cancelled?

The reasons for cancellation of this procurement procedure were given in the cancellation notice, which reads: “Provable reasons that are beyond the control of the contracting authority and that could not be foreseen at the time of initiation of the public procurement procedure: Annulment of the tender documentation upon appeal”.

It is currently not known who appealed and on what, but judging by the public procurement notice and the way in which it was written and formulated, there were handful of reasons for annulment.

They send the following answer to our inquiry about duration of the previous contract and announcement of new public procurement notice:
“The signing of a new contract will be realized in line with the procedure that depends on implementation of re-announcement of the public procurement notice and other factors over which the PE “MOSTAR PARKING”, as a contracting authority, has no influence”.  

Portal Hercegovina.info has warned of illogicalities and shortcomings of this this public procurement notice, so Mostar parking even sent a rebuttal letter in which they claim how “The tender for services of modernization and improvement of the parking payment system was conducted in line with all relevant laws and regulations, with complete transparency”.

Cancellation of this tender after our discoveries and persistent refusal of the Mostar city parking company to disclose the contract with Lanaco casts a shadow of doubt on the transparency of this company’s management process.

Since we do not know when the contract with Lanaco for 2023 expires and if it has already expired, the users of parking services in Mostar must be informed that by presently paying for parking through the GoParking application, they give their phone numbers, license plate numbers, and bank details ,if paying by mobile banking, to a company close to SNSD, which appears as a third party, without a valid contract, between them as the users and Mostar parking d.o.o. as a service provider, which is a job for the inspectors of the BiH Personal Data Protection Agency.