An underpass built with millions of euros in Malisheva and inaugurated with a concert and speeches was flooded just a few months later due to heavy rain. The municipality admits that the project has not yet completed technical acceptance, while the construction company has not provided any explanations.

With a grand concert, speeches, and parades, in August 2025, the municipality of Malisheva inaugurated a car underpass in the city.

The underpass was just part of an infrastructure project worth nearly 9 million euros, which the mayor of this municipality, Ekrem Kastrati, has called "among the largest projects in the history of Malisheva," writes Free Europe.

The "Malisheva Urbane" project also includes a square and underground parking lots, the construction of which was carried out mainly by the "B Famis" company from Suhareka.

But, just a few months after the inauguration - on January 6, 2026 - the underpass filled with water after intense rainfall.

The municipality of Malisheva told Radio Free Europe (RFE/RL) that the flooding was a result of heavy rain and "increasing water levels in the Mirusha River and a branch of the river, which made it impossible to discharge water."

The next day, the underpass was reopened to traffic, after the water was cleaned, which, according to the municipality, was done by the municipal cleaning company.

The municipality has not blamed the underpass works for this flood, although it has said that the technical acceptance for this project has not been fully completed.

"The inauguration was made for the roads, [which is] a part of the project, while the project as a whole is not completed," says the municipality's information office, without specifying whether the technical acceptance of the underpass has been made.

Technical acceptance is the final procedure for each construction project when it is verified that the work has been completed as foreseen in the project or contract.

"In engineering language, it is called 'usability permit'. It is mostly used for residential buildings. Underpasses are smaller buildings, but technical acceptance is still required, because it is a rule," says Naser Kabashi, professor at the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the University of Pristina.

However, according to the professor, in cases of flooding of construction structures such as underpasses, it is more related to a lack of planning for coping with high-intensity, short-term rainfall during design.

"The inability to absorb water in these capacities has resulted in this [filling with water], according to general cases, without focusing on specific cases that may have any special elements," he emphasizes to REL.

On the other hand, there has been no reaction from the company "B Famis" regarding this issue, even after questions sent by REL.

An employee of this company, who spoke to REL from the company's official number, said that the company "is on leave until January 15th."

In the contract for the construction of this project, which REL has secured, the work also includes drainage and water discharge systems, although there are no other specific details related to situations such as flooding.

On its social media, the company has continuously advertised the project and their work on it.

How was the contract for this project won?

At the end of 2022, the municipality of Malisheva opened the tender for the construction of this project, which was expected to cost around 8.9 million euros.

The tender was open and the main criterion for winning it was the lowest price offered.

There were two bidders in this call.

One was the company “B Famis” from Suhareka in consortium with two other companies “Eskavatori” and “Best Company”. Their offer was around 8.2 million euros.

The owner of the company "B Famis" is Bekim Bytyçi.

Meanwhile, the second bidder was the company "Famis Co", also from Suhareka, together with another company "Bamirs", with a bid of around 7.7 million euros.

The owners of the company "Famis Co" are Avdullah Bytyçi, Fadil Bytyçi and Hamdi Bytyçi.

The tender was won by "B Famis", despite having the highest bid, after the municipality declared the second bidder "irresponsible", on the grounds that it lacked some of the documentation and criteria required in the tender.

Among them, according to the municipality, were some documentation about the engineers' work experiences on the project, then evidence of previous experiences, and even the lack of certain equipment.

Finally, on January 12, 2023, "B Famis" signed the contract for this project.

How are these two companies related to each other?

"B Famis" and "Famis Co" in the past were a single company founded and led mainly by members of the Bytyçi family.

Their history goes back to the 70s and over the years the company changed its name several times.

This is public information that both companies have written in their histories summarized on the companies' websites.

Only in 2022, the company, which was called "Famis Co", split and the company "B Famis" was created, which was officially registered on May 19, 2022, a few months before winning the tender for the project in Malisheva.

In addition to the main tender for the construction of the underpass and accompanying infrastructure, the municipality of Malisheva, in 2025, opened another tender for additional work on this project.

This time, the tender was not opened for bidders, but was awarded through negotiation to the company "B Famis".

The value of this tender was around 823.000 euros.

The Public Procurement Law allows institutions to award a negotiated tender only with specific justification as to why it was necessary.

REL asked the municipality of Malisheva why these additional works were necessary and why this tender was not open to other bidders, but did not receive a response.

“Classic form of bid rigging”

Albulena Ndrecaj, director of the organization INPO, which conducts research and reports on procurement in Kosovo, describes the situation when two identical, or related, companies compete in the same tender as "a long-standing practice in Kosovo."

"This is the most classic form of bid manipulation in public procurement, where often a single beneficiary has two or three companies and makes bids with different math so that the most expensive bid wins," she says.

According to Ndrecaj, the responsibility for safeguarding public money falls on the contracting authority, in this case the municipality.

"Contracting authorities generally know all economic operators. The economic operator has a single goal, obtaining the contract. It is up to the Contracting Authority to detect if companies are committing legal deviations," says Ndrecaj.

Regarding the fact that in a tender with two bidders, one was declared irresponsible, Ndrecaj says that sometimes this is done intentionally.

"...because an economic operator that, let's say, has contracts worth millions with the state or other contracting authorities, it is nonsense [it makes no sense] to be declared irresponsible in another tender procedure due to the lack of any documentation or failure to meet the criteria," she underlines.

On the website of the company "Famis Co", their projects include the outer ring road in the municipality of Pristina and an overpass in the village of Komoran in Drenas.

REL has sent questions regarding this matter to the company "Famis Co", but as of the time of publication of this article, has not received a response.

REL has also written to the Public Procurement Regulatory Commission to request an interpretation regarding whether this situation constitutes a violation, but has not yet received a response.

KosovoNews