The Civil Protection Administration of Canton Sarajevo procured 50,000 protective masks from a company which until recently distributed cake to shopping centres, Detektor reported.

According to the contract, signed on March 20, the masks cost 52,650 Bosnian Marks, VAT included.

According to the online public procurement and the company register, activity of the company in question, ‘Panta Rei’, is “body care and maintenance”.

Its owner, Baris Bejtovic, told the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) that the company has been distributing cake to shopping malls before the pandemic.

He said that he realised that business will stop due to the health crisis and that he wanted to save as many jobs as possible.

“I was looking for a way to keep these people so I wouldn’t have to send them to the unemployment office,” he told BIRN, adding that he signed contracts with textile producers and gave them the idea to start producing protective masks before the state of disaster was declared across the country.

He went on to distribute masks to grocery store chains and pharmacies, he said.

The head of the Anti-Corruption and Quality Control Office of Sarajevo Canton, Erduan Kafedzic, said that there were irregularities in the procurement procedure and that it should be looked into.