BANJALUKA – Banja Luka IT company “Lanaco” and its owner Nebojsa Ninić are under investigation by the US Government and its contract management system SAM.gov, the CAPITAL portal has learned.
According to our information, which can be easily confirmed by looking at the official website of this system, “Lanaco” and Ninic have been on the list of legal and natural persons since July 16 of this year and have been marked as “ineligible”, as stated, “based on adequate evidence of conduct indicating a lack of business honesty or integrity.
The investigation of the “Chains” is still ongoing and they will be on this list until the end of the investigation, which is not time-limited.
It is interesting that this list includes all companies and all natural persons that are on the “black list” of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, OFAC.
Regarding the effects of listing, it states that agencies will not solicit bids, award renewal contracts, place new orders with, or otherwise extend current contracts, or agree to subcontracts in excess of $35,000. dollars, except for commercially available finished items with these contractors, unless the agency head (or designee) determines in writing that there is compelling reason to do so.
“No executive branch agency shall enter into, renew, or extend covered primary or lower level transactions to a participant or principal that has been preliminarily determined to be ineligible unless the head of the awarding agency grants an exception in writing for compelling reasons“, it is stated, among other things, in the explanation.
The company “Lanaco” confirmed to us that they are “in the process” “which is the result of regular monitoring focused on the analysis of procurement processes related to the projects of American agencies in different markets, without explaining what this means at all.
“The process is focused on a specific procurement and all the companies that participated in it. At this moment, as far as we are aware, the process is still ongoing. On the other hand, respecting the standard procedures, the names of the company “Lanaco” and Nebojša Ninić as the responsible person, as well as other participants in this procurement, were on the SAM list. The company “Lanaco” operates completely normally with entities from the US market, and the ongoing process does not affect our relations and work with companies and partners from this or any other market.“, they claim in this company and add that “Lanaco” has relied on cooperation with companies from the US market since the beginning of its work.
We also looked for answers at the US Embassy, where they told us that SAM.ba is the official website of the United States Government that can be used for registration for doing business with the US authorities, updating, renewing or checking the status of registration of entities, as well as searching for registered and excluded subjects.
“Sanctions imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) are one of the reasons why certain entities can be excluded from doing business with US authorities. However, there are a number of other reasons that may make a company ineligible to receive funding from US authorities, including evidence of conduct that indicates a lack of business honesty or integrity, and various regulations, laws, executive orders or other legal grounds. We cannot comment on individual cases beyond what is stated in the exclusion details on the SAM.gov page, particularly as some of those cases may still be under investigation and awaiting final resolution“, they told us in this embassy.
CAPITAL: A. Pisarević
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Source: capital.ba
