Research, ranking and analysis of transparency, accountability and integrity of Macedonian institutions in public procurements. You can download the full analysis here.

SKOPJE, 7 February, 2018 – Today, the Center for Civil Communications published the Index of Rationality No. 17 developed for a new group of products: summer work clothing; winter work clothing; work shoes - clogs; hygiene maintenance of indoor work premises; and infusion kits.

The biggest difference in prices of 554% was observed in the summer work clothing, while the smallest difference in prices of 73% was noted for procurement of infusion kits.

Development of the present index of rationality includes national and local institutions that have organized public procurements for these types of goods and services in the course of 2016 and 2017.
Development of this index included data for all 48 institutions on national and local level that have organized total of 53 tender procedures for procurement of indicated goods and services

This Report is available here. For more information, please contact the Center for Civil Communications on tel. (02) 3213-513 or by e-mail:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The Index has been developed as part of the institutional support of the Center for Civil Communications within the Civica Mobilitas Program for support of civil society.

Recent training on investigative journalism in the new media, held in late January, 2018 rounded the cycle of ten advanced trainings in which a total of 96 journalists from 55 media from all over the country gained new knowledge and improved their skills for research and reporting on the most important topics in the society.

The topics of the trainings were selected depending on the recommendations of the journalists according to their needs or as a reaction to the current issues in the society starting from searching "Panama Papers", to research and reporting on the election process, on financial and economic issues, on topics of local importance, to specialized trainings for television journalists and journalists from the new media, as well as trainings for use in the research of digital and forensic tools and trainings for providing quality investigative journalism for junior journalists, as well as for those most advanced ones.

Lecturers were investigative journalists, trainers and experts from Europe, the region, but also from Macedonia. Among them, Christiaan Triebert, award-winning researcher from the Netherlands, Keith Stafford, the leading global journalism trainer of Reuters, Rachel Wright, a former BBC producer, investigative journalists and editors from the leading investigative journalism TV program Insider and one of the best regional corruption research networks, Krik, both from Serbia.

As a result, the regular annual monitoring of media reporting showed an increased presence of investigative stories and analytical articles in 2017 compared to 2016, from 5% to 8.8%, along with improved quality of these stories.

All of these activities are carried out within the framework of the EU-funded project “Investigative reporting to boost reforms”, implemented by the Center for Civil Communications in partnership with the NGO Infocenter and BIRN Macedonia.

The project encompasses a series of workshops for improving the cooperation between journalists and the civil sector in achieving common societal goals, support of journalists from Macedonia for research on the ways in which certain problems that are facing in Macedonia are solved in other European countries, support to local NGOs for the preparation of research and databases on important phenomena of the country, which will further serve journalists and the civil sector to improve and support their activities, etc.

Tender with absurd prices of 0,01 MKD
SKOPJE, December 04, 2017 - The Center for Civil Communications today published a report on the monitoring of public procurement conducted by the central level institutions for the period from January to June 2017.
Key findings from the monitoring of public procurement are:

• As many as 35% of monitored tender procedures have rejected a
  number of bids as unacceptable. This additionally hinders competition
  in tender procedures.
• In some tender procedures, e-auctions have resulted in attainment
  of such low prices that bring under question reality of tender
  procedures’ estimated value and quality of procurements.
• ‘Lowest price’ defined as the single criterion on contract awarding
  leads to tender procedures which have attained absurd prices of 0.01
  MKD and 0.01 percent. Such market inconsequence increases the risk
  of possible manipulations in the course of tender implementation.
• In the first half of 2017, the council of public procurements was
  addressed with 7,583 applications from contracting authorities, i.e.
  by 9% less applications compared to the same period last year. In that,
  the council invoiced contracting authorities for issuance of opinions/
  approvals in total amount of 806,172 EUR.
• In the first half of 2017, the non-transparent negotiation procedure
  without prior announcement of call for bids was used to sign
  contracts in accumulative value of 7.4 Million EUR, which is by 12%
  higher compared to the same period last year.
• Number and share of annulled tender procedures is increasing. In the
  first half of 2017, a total of 2,033 tender procedures were annulled
  (fully or in part), representing A share of 23.7% from the total number
  of procurement notices announced in the same period.
• Total of 19 negative references for 17 companies were issued in the first half of 2017.

For more information, please contact the Center for Civil Communications at (02) 3213-513 or at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .