Fraud Charges in Armenia no Obstacle to State Contracts in North Macedonia

On December 6, 2018, prosecutors in Armenia charged a Macedonian national called Branislav Dimitrijevic with "large-scale fraud" during construction of a north-south highway, as team leader for the French-Spanish consortium Safege-Eptisa.

Dimitrijevic was banned from leaving the country, but he did so anyway - with the help of three Macedonian diplomats, a private plane and, prosecutors say, someone else's passport.

The prosecutors added his "illegal" departure to the charge sheet and Dimitrijevic, if ever found guilty in an Armenian court, faces spending years behind bars.

That, however, proved no barrier to Dimitrijevic resurfacing in February this year as one of the winners of a 22 million euro Macedonian government tender to supervise more road building, this time corridors 8 and 10D being built by the US-Turkish consortium Bechtel-ENKA.

With Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski watching on, the director of North Macedonia's state roads enterprise, Ejup Rustemi, inked the deal with Paolo Orsini of the Italian engineering company IRD.

IRD is the lead partner in a consortium that also includes Evro Konsalting, co-owned by Dimitrijevic, Spanish Eptisa, which Dimitrijevic worked for in Armenia, and Elektra Solution, owned by Andon Ampov.

The Public Enterprise for State Roads, headed by Rustemi, said that the consortium won because its offer was of the "best quality and price". Asked about Dimitrijevic's legal issues in Armenia, the state agency told BIRN: "The entire selection procedure was conducted in accordance with all laws and bylaws regulating public procurement and was transparent from the outset."

Dimitrijevic could not be reached for comment via Evro Konsalting.

Millions of euros in state...