Skopje, 11 March 2024 (MIA) - A suspicious company with Russian capital attempted to take part in a tender for procurement of specific equipment in the Ministry of Defense, heard Monday a briefing attended by Defense Minister Slavjanka Petrovska.

The company is registered in an EU member-state in order to show itself as relevant on the market, but Macedonian intelligence services alarmed of the suspicion even before doing the security clearance.

"It was indicative that the company's offer in the first stage was almost the same with the other two companies, it maybe differed by some EUR 100,000, but during the second stage they went extremely low, by almost 50 percent, which confirmed our suspicions they would want to win the contract at any cost," said Minister Petrovska.

She added there are no grounds for a crime according to the Criminal Code but protection of the country's security should be raised on a higher level.

"We are doing some analyses, the Public Procurement Law will probably have to undergo amendments, because the general law reads that the lowest price is the key requirement, except for the fields of defense and security. We cannot afford this, even when we procure food for the Army. We cannot have the lowest price as the requirement, we have to consider the quality as well, since we are procuring literary everything," noted Petrovska.

Photo: MIA