Respirators procured by the Federal Civil Protection Administration (FCPA) from China have been verified and put into operation.

This information was confirmed to the media on February 23rd by the acting director of FCPA Enes Memić and he added that "respirators are now in use in health care institutions for which they were procured". Memić then stated that the whole story about the respirators being unusable "fell into the water".

Tail wind

It is interesting that FCPA, an institution that, according to the order of the FB&H Government, procured 100 respirators for 10.5 million KM, released this news to the public the day before the trial of Fadil Novalić, Fahrudin Solak, Fikret Hodžić and Jelka Milićević, thereby giving the defenses of the accused a tail wind.

But what has been silenced, and subsequently determined, is that 95 out of 100 purchased respirators have been serviced and verified. It has been hidden from the public for months that five respirators have never been serviced, because they obviously have a certain problem, which is why they have never been verified.

We learn that "Verlab" is still waiting for a call for verification of the other five devices and that the contract, which was determined by the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), which withdrew documents from this company and FCPA at the end of last week, has not been completed. It has been confirmed to us that the servicing has been going on for almost three months and it is not known when it will be completed.

Last year, we remind you, during the first verification, irregularities were found, as well as a system malfunction on these devices, which were "eliminated" by service technicians after two months.

Of the 95 respirators that passed the verification, 30 were requested and obtained by the Clinical Center of the University of Sarajevo (KCUS), headed by Sebija Izetbegović, while the other 65 are not used by any health institution in the Federation.

Not allowed to talk

When we asked FCPA what happened to the five remaining respirators and why they were not working, we were told:

- Considering that the procurement procedure is being conducted before the Court of B&H, and according to the order of the Cantonal Prosecutor's Office Sarajevo and the Municipal Court, representatives of the State Investigation and Protection Agency took over the original documentation related to the distribution, installation and verification of ACM812A respirators, and due to the interest of the investigation, we are not able to provide more information about the activities carried out by this administration, which relate to the respirators in question.

What is excluded from KCUS

At the end of last week, SIPA members seized documentation on "Srebrena malina" respirators in three institutions. Those institutions are Clinical Center of the University of Sarajevo (KCUS), the "Verlab" laboratory and the Federal Civil Protection Administration (FCPA).

SIPA took out three registers from "Verlab", in which all work orders, measurement reports, the contract between FCPA and "Verlab", as well as certificates for all respirators verified so far.

It’s the same with FCPA. Contracts with "Verlab" were excluded. As far as KCUS is concerned, SIPA, according to the prosecutor's order, excluded documents on respirators that were put into operation in COVID wards.