Artists without accommodation due to rigged tenders?

The project of this year's 31st Grad Theater is in a big problem - three days before the official opening of the once prestigious festival, that public institution has not fully resolved the issue of accommodation and food for the participants, nor technical support...

This followed after the State Commission for the Control of Public Procurement Procedures rejected all the tenders announced by that Budva institution.

The local company Multimedia group, whose founder is Marko Kentera, and which signed the drama program of the festival in the period from 2007 to 2013, filed complaints about the tender documentation of the Public Institution.

City Theater, stating that it is a matter of rigged public procurement procedures.

The state commission accepted each of the objections of that Budva company...

The new management claim that this thwarted their intention to return the festival to its old ways - with a better program, with numerous financial savings and without the scandals that rocked it in the previous period.

They announced that the Commission has on several occasions blocked the continuation of the procedure for almost all activities necessary for the festival to take place properly.

However, it was established that all the complaints were founded, i.e. that there had been a series of violations of the Law on Public Procurement and that it was actually a case of rigged tenders - from accommodation, through technical support to food and marketing...

That state institution ordered corrections, and the Grad Theater claims that they are in daily communication with representatives of the Commission and competent ministries, in order to continue the tender process and end it urgently.

The Municipality of Budva - the financier of this year's Grad Theater with 280.000 euros, told "Vijesta" that the festival will certainly take place and that they will solve the problem of providing accommodation and equipment...

Acting Executive Director of the Grad Theater, Milena Lubarda Marojević, said that the festival suffers from intense obstructions when it comes to public procurement.

"We are doing our best to, staying within the framework of the law, realize what is foreseen... All appeals were sent from only one company - Multimedia group, with which the City Theater has cooperated since 2007 through deals with a total value of several million euros , and through which we are not doing any segment of the program this year. During the previous years, we did not have any objections from this company on public procurements, nor on operations," she said.

"Vijesti" was told that numerous theaters that will host the festival have offered their techniques to overcome the problems, and that hoteliers are ready to help accommodate the participants who will arrive in Budva on Monday.

According to the plan, the festival will be opened on July 5 by the play The Grieving Family directed by Igor Vuk Torbica and performed by theaters from Celje and Kranj.

The festival programs will be held under the motto: For three pennies, which is a phrase taken from the famous musical Die Dreigroschenoper by Bertold Brecht and which symbolically and meaningfully marks this year's concept on several levels.

Multimedia: Now the Grad Theater will be blamed by the one who caught them in the rigging

When asked what motivated them to lodge complaints about the tender procedures of the Public Institution Grad Teatra, the Multimedia Group stated that they had noticed numerous irregularities to which they had to react.

"We welcomed the changes in Grad Teatr, because we in the Multimedia group have had legal disputes with the Public Institution for years. We are not doing any important festival program, but we are pointing out a number of problems.

This year, to our surprise, the irregularities really culminated. The new management is so obviously engaged in rigging tenders in all business segments that the State Procurement Control Commission has reacted several times. It is enough to read numerous decisions of this Commission and everything will be clear to you. "Grad Theater has become a machine that set the conditions for almost every tender this year, with incidental shouting and obfuscation that some 'formers' are to blame and responsible for everything," the Budva company's response states.

They announced that they haven't worked with Grad Theater on major programs for years, but now they say without hiding that they want to.

"However, only through legal tenders, which we are not allowed to do. Following the behavior pattern of the last months, now the Grad Theater will be blamed by the one who caught them in the act - Multimedia group or the State Commission, and not those who for four or five months, and only three days before the opening of the festival, are unable to finish n one the only important tender", the company said.

The method of program selection is also controversial

"Vijesti" had access to documentation according to which the method of program selection was also called into question, because there were allegedly no contests or negotiation procedures mandated by law without publication.

According to those documents, the Council of the institution took over the selection authority and selected and contracted all the programs independently, which did not comply with the procedures required by the Law on Public Procurement.

Applications, lawsuits and appeals have been announced in these proceedings as well.