Reporting of irregularities in the context of IPA funds

Croatian Post and Electronic Communications Agency (hereinafter HAKOM) is the beneficiary of the Component I of the programme Instrument for Pre Accession (hereinafter IPA) - Transition Assistance and Institution Building.

As the Iregularity Officer, a person who deals with irregularities and fraud on an operational level, HAKOM has appointed Ms Anamarija Kobasić, and Ms Zrinka Jonjić as her substitute.

In accordance with the Guidelines on prevention, detection, reporting and treatment of irregularities in the context of IPA funds, irregularitymeans any infringement of a provision of Community and/or national law resulting from an act or omission by an economic operator (employee, natural or legal persons or other bodies), which has, or would have, the effect of prejudicing the general budget of the Communities by an unjustified item of expenditure.

Irregularities can be Technical, Contractual, Financial or Administrative. Any of those irregularities can be Intentional or Unintentional and irregularities may have, or not have, a financial impact. Their nature may appear to be Systemic or of the One-off irregularity type.

Technical irregularities arise due to the supply of material or workmanship of a lower quality than that specified in the contract, most especially for works or supplies.
Contractual irregularities (for works or supplies in particular) arise due to incorrect application of the legal rules for a contract.
Financial irregularities are fraudulent application or theft of funds, including corrupt practices.
Administrative Irregularities are usually connected to the non-compliance with applicable rules to be followed (for instance EU tendering or contracting rules or finance regulations).
These are irregularities that occur recurrently or with a high probability of occurrence in the system as such throughout various projects while one-off irregularity only occur throughout a specific project, but not in the system as such.
Intentional irregularities are the actions of any operator of any involved bodies in the IPA structure, banks or any other entity, in order to enrich himself or any other person in conflict with the Contract between the Contractor or Beneficiary and Contracting Authority, mainly through: invoices made out for undelivered services, goods and works – dummy (fictive) invoices, invoices made up by a fictive firm – falsifications, invoices made up in duplicate,invoices made up for excessive amounts, non-charging quantity, price and other discount in the invoices, fraudulent transfer of funds to a wrong account,manipulating findings of documentary checks, manipulating findings arising from checks on the spot, falsifying and modifying accounting and/or other records and justifying documents, incorrect submission or omission of events, operations or other important information.
Unintentional are the actions of any operator of any involved bodies in the IPA structure, banks or any other entity caused by negligence and resulting, in most cases, from infringement of approved procedures.
Irregularities with financial impact are irregularities which already resulted in the payment of unjustified expenditure to the Contractor or Beneficiary. Based on the request of the Contracting Authority, the Contractor or Beneficiary within prescribed time limit has to repay back amounts paid for unjustified expenditure (unjustified paid expenses), while irregularities without financial impact are those identified before reimbursement of unjustified expenditure to the Contractor or Beneficiary.

The employee who detected the irregularity is required to keep, at a safe place, all original documentation (or a certified copy if the original documentation must be released) certifying that irregularity was committed and forward them to irregularity officer in HAKOM – either Ms Anamarija Kobasić or Ms Zrinka Jonjić, as soon as possible by any means of communication (personally, by telephone, by e-mail, fax …) verbally or in written form, formally or informally and also anonymously:

Croatian Post and Electronic

Communications Agency

Jurišićeva 13

10000 Zagreb

Tel: 01/ 489-6076,

01/462 -6120

Fax: 01/ 4922-227

E-mail: anamarija.kobasic@hakom.hr
zrinka.jonjic@hakom.hr

All irregularities regardless of the size of the irregularity and regardless of whether the irregularity is caused by error or fraud is to be reported by the employee discovering or suspecting the irregularity to IO.

Another way for someone to point out an irregularity would be to provide as much detail as possible on email address: nepravilnosti.eu@mfin.hr (AFCOS- Anti Fraud Co-Ordinating Structures):

Another way for someone to anonymously point out an irregularity would be to provide as much detail as possible on email address of OLAF - European Anti-Fraud Office: olaf-courrier@ec.europa.eu or Fax: +32-2-2960853.

All staff works in an open environment where they are encouraged to report irregularities, secure in the knowledge that such reports will be investigated and taken seriously. They also know that they will not suffer any negative ramifications from reporting irregularities which they suspect may involve their superiors. (See Section VII.1. “Whistleblowing” principle of the Guidelines). Such matters are also covered by Labour Law OG 149/09 and Law on access to information 172/03).