SARAJEVO, Aug 3 (Hina) - A Croatian company lost a profitable job of printing ballots for Bosnia-Herzegovina's general elections, set for this October, after it tried to increase the price on which it had already agreed with Bosnian
authorities.
SARAJEVO, Aug 3 (Hina) - A Croatian company lost a profitable job of
printing ballots for Bosnia-Herzegovina's general elections, set
for this October, after it tried to increase the price on which it
had already agreed with Bosnian authorities. #L#
A member of the Bosnian Main Electoral Commission was quoted by the
Sarajevo media on Friday as saying that the job of the printing
ballots would be taken away from the Cakovec-based "Zrinski"
company and given to the Hungarian printing plant "Allami".
"Zrinski tried to cheat us for 100,000 convertible marks," Vehid
Sehic told to the "Oslobodjenje" daily.
He explained that the Croatian printery tried to increase by
100,000 marks the price of 1.151 million they had already fixed.
After it was selected among five applicants as the best bidder, the
"Zrinski" company subsequently demanded the price rise, claiming
that more ballots should be issued than the previously agreed
figure.
"We have established that the size of ballots as well as an increase
in their number following the final lists of eligible voters does
not correspond to such an increase in the price. So, this is a
typical bid to exceed the price which we could not allow," Sehic
said.
The Hungarian company will be entrusted with the task as the second
best bidder, and will be paid 1.350 million marks.
The other three companies that answered to the invitation,
published by the Electoral Commission for the printing of ballots,,
were printing houses from Bosnia. They, however, did not meet
requirements, the commission concluded.
The printing of ballots abroad has caused new problems in relation
to the protection of data about Bosnian citizens.
The company that prints ballots should also distribute i.e. send
ballots to Bosnian nationals living outside Bosnia, and thus all
information on such persons will be available to the company.
Bosnia's Council of Ministers has requested the national
parliament to address the problem and establish whether this would
present a breach of the law on keeping personal data of Bosnian
citizens secret.
If the parliament decides that making such data available to
foreign firms is not in compliance with the constitution, the
conduct of the poll in October may be brought into question.
(hina) ms