Investigation in Štip: “Džekson” sports hall costing €2.3 million exceeded the legal limit for additional works several times over

As the “Sakam da kazam” portal reports, the construction of the “Džekson” sports hall in Štip cost €2.3 million, but during implementation the legal limit of 20% for additional works over the value of the initial contract was exceeded several times. This conclusion comes from the new investigation “Public oversight of public procurement: Case studies 3”, which, according to “Sakam da kazam”, was carried out by the Centre for Civic Communications.

The first contract for the construction of the facility was around €1.1 million and envisaged that additional and unforeseen works would not exceed 20% of its value, namely around €220,000. Instead of an annex to the existing contract, the Municipality of Štip announced a new tender titled “Additional and unforeseen works for the facility”, on the basis of which a new contract worth around €1.25 million including VAT was signed — larger even than the first basic contract.

The second tender did not concern a new, separate construction, but “additional and unforeseen works” for the facility that was being built. “From the very object of the procurement defined by the Municipality of Štip, it is clear that this is about continuing and completing construction works that had begun. Article 119 of the Law on Public Procurement is clear that the value of unforeseen and additional works must not exceed 20% of the basic contract,” the investigation states, according to “Sakam da kazam”.

According to the investigation, only one company bid in the second tender — “Sandra Inzhinjering” from Skopje, the same company that was building the hall. From September 2025 to July 2026, the same company implemented two contracts in parallel on the same facility and under the same supervision. The Centre for Civic Communications assesses that the open procedure enabled only formal transparency: the tender documentation did not contain a sufficiently clear division between the works carried out and those planned, while at the time the second tender was held the first contract had still not been completed.

The hall opened at the beginning of September and has a capacity of 1,500 spectators. The mayor of the municipality, Ivan Jordanov, has declared that the Municipality of Štip has already obtained a licence for European cup matches in small sports and volleyball to be played at this sports centre.