The competition for a new director of the Radio and Television of Kosovo has been scrapped after BIRN reported irregularities in the process.
The Board of the Kosovo public broadcaster, Radio Television of Kosovo, RTK, has canceled the election of a new General Director on the grounds that current law does not allow for the election.
The decision came after BIRN reported irregular findings during its monitoring of the process.
After the publication of the results of the written exam, it was revealed that three members of the board, all sitting next to each other, gave exactly the same points to the candidate Shkumbin Ahmetxhekaj who came first on the list of candidates.
The chairman of the RTK board, Besnik Boletini, said that the violations that had occurred in previous elections of a director should not be repeated.
The board’s official reason for the cancellation of the competition was lack of a proper legal framework.
“Having as its basic goal the return of legality to RTK and the observance of current legislation, the Board considers that there is no proper legal basis which would ensure the election of the director in a regular manner and without disputed legal issues,” it said.
“Consequently, the Board under no circumstances may elect the director of RTK without respecting legal procedures, or by not clarifying them in full, avoiding any ambiguity and ensuring full transparency and legality,” the board added.
The board added that it had asked the RTK management to establish a working group for the creation of a special regulation that will be in full compliance with the Law on RTK and, within a more rational time frame, re-announce the vacancy for the post of General Director.
“The draft regulation will also be discussed with civil society and RTK unions,” the announcement said.
Mysterious differences in scores for the same answers
Earlier in the week, BIRN reported irregular findings in the recruitment process.
After completion of the interviews of the candidates for General Director on Saturday, the acting director of RTK, Shkumbin Ahmetxhekaj, was ranked first after calculating the points of his written test and the interview.
Initially, eight candidates for the post passed the written test and were invited to the final stage of the competition – the interview.
But three of the candidates, Fisnik Dërguti, Hysen Hundozi and Fadil Hoxha, then withdrew from the competition after the candidates’ scores for the written test were published.
The list revealed surprising differences in the scores they were given by board members for the same answers.
All three candidates described the competition as “prepared” and “orchestrated” and said the process should re-start from point zero.
On Saturday, Hoxha, in a post on Facebook, wrote that if expertise suggested suspicions in the vote, he would report the whole process to the prosecutor’s office.
The list of evaluated candidates, which was published in writing following a request made by BIRN, revealed the points each candidate received from each member of the evaluation commission.
In some cases, one member of the evaluation commission gave a candidate 15 points, the maximum score, while another member of the commission gave zero points for the same answer.
BIRN requested access to documents on the points awarded by commission members for each candidate tested, as the RTK board does not publish the points awarded to each candidate separately by each commission member. On the day of the test, the evaluation commission announced only the total scores of the candidates.
BIRN’s request to see the full list of scores awarded for each candidate by each member of the commission was based on best practice applied in job competitions monitoring assisted by British experts, in which candidates are transparently scored for the answers they give.
In addition to transparent evaluation, the British experts engaged by the British embassy have demanded clarification and justification of scoring from members of the evaluation committee in cases where there was a great discrepancy in scores.
Following publication of the evaluation list, the Chairman of the RTK board, Besnik Boletini, on Friday complained of attempts to “tarnish” the work of the the board.
Boletini said that the written test for the director’s post contained 11 questions and, according to him, the difference in points between the members was simply because each member evaluated each candidate independently.
“Some of the members could have evaluated only the content [of the answers], some also evaluated the spelling or ordering of the paragraphs,” Boletini wrote on Facebook.
BIRN, however, found that each jury member had the sheet with the answers with them when evaluating the exams for each of the candidates.
The RTK board announced the vacancy for the post of general director in early February.
BIRN has been monitoring the process since the competition was announced. FOL organization, media lawyer Flutura Kusari, three RTK unions and a European Union monitor have also been monitoring the process.