HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS HEAVY PARTNERSHIP The university applied for a cross-border call with the party's IT company

The University of Mostar, together with the party's IT company - Katarina, applied for a tender in Croatia. The subject of the procurement, published by the Central Registry of Insured Persons of the Republic of Croatia, is the development of a digital platform with personalized pension information.
There, the University and Katarina appear as a 'community of bidders'.

For the aforementioned job, the Zagreb-based company Cuspis applied with an offer of 236,250 euros including VAT, and the University and Katarina with an offer of 287,500 euros.

The University of Mostar has meanwhile ordered hundreds of thousands of marks worth of equipment and services from its 'partner'. Many professors wonder where it is, claiming that they are working on computers that are about twenty years old.

From March 23, 2023, to March 23, 2025, the University has an agreement with Katarina worth 80,000 marks.

The subject of the agreement is 'public procurement of equipment servicing and maintenance services for the needs of organizational units and the rectorate of the University of Mostar'.

In addition to that contract, there is also a contract worth 97,500 marks for programming services of software packages.
In May 2021, the University signed a contract with Katarina worth 70,000 marks, also for equipment servicing and maintenance.

That same year, the University procured 693,922 marks worth of computer equipment from the same company.

Why is the University of Mostar, an educational institution of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina and beyond, applying for jobs related to the development of digital platforms? It is quite clear what the interest of the University, of Katarina, of the public, and whose interests are private is. Tomislav Marić works as an IT expert at the University of Mostar.

Tomislav Marić previously worked in the IT department of HT Mostar and was hired by Rade Bošnjak on the fifth floor through fictitious contracts. He now works at the University. In addition to this clear connection to murky IT activities, there is another one. The office on the fifth floor, where a secret parallel healthcare information system for patients was developed, was owned by Katarina, which bought it on July 19, 2019, and two years later sold it to its owner. All of this points to the fact that the relationship between the University and Katarina is not accidental.

Furthermore, for the first time in partnership with the University, Katarina is offering a service for the development of a digital platform, whereas previously it only offered the sale and maintenance of equipment. This means that the package includes the team from the fifth floor, who were trained at Vitalis, including Tomislav Marić.

Why is the University of Mostar, an educational institution for Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, applying for contracts to develop digital platforms? Why did the university choose Katarina as a partner for the application, a company to which it gives hundreds of thousands of marks? We asked the University of Mostar about this (referring to the photo of the university's procurement from Katarina).

Silence Pact

We asked the University of Mostar on April 24th of this year about which experts were included in the offer they submitted together with Katarina d.o.o. and to which positions they were assigned, what is the financial share of the University of Mostar in the total offer, whether the team that worked on the parallel system for Rade Bošnjak is included in the reported team, and whether this is a new degradation of the University of Mostar under the leadership of Rector Zoran Tomić. Of course, the communication and public relations expert did not respond and only appears in regime media.

Katarina, which receives hundreds of thousands of marks from institutions led by HDZ personnel, also remains silent on our inquiry about all the amounts they have invoiced to the University of Mostar in the last three years, which experts from which companies/institutions were included in the offer submitted with the University of Mostar, and to which positions, according to the Tender Documentation, they were assigned. This is not just the case with this inquiry, as the practice of a vow of silence and having hundreds of thousands of marks on the account for this company is common.

However, it is clear from the public procurement portal that the University of Mostar is giving plenty of money to Katarina, and besides that, they have chosen them as a partner for the cross-border project application.

The Law on Public-Private Partnership in Bosnia and Herzegovina states that the public partner is obliged to respect the following principles: the principle of protecting public interest, the principle of market competition, the principle of efficiency, the principle of equal treatment, the principle of mutual recognition, the principle of proportionality, the principle of transparency, the principle of freedom of contract, and the principle of environmental protection.
It is not known how the University chose its partner, as the public is not informed about it, and in addition to the principle of competition, the principle of transparency is also jeopardized.

The rector, who awards himself prizes and recognition, obviously also chooses partners for cooperation.