How to Get Rich Running the Municipality of Tirana
On March 28, the Special Structure against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK), also known as the Special Prosecution, released a press statement that it had issued arrest warrants for a number of high-ranking administrators from the municipality of Tirana, including Redi Molla, a former director of the Tirana Water Operator UKT, and Mariglen Qato, former Director of Inspectorate for the Protection of the Territory (IMT). Both have been charged with corruption and the failure to declare private interests as public officials, after they were denounced by opposition MP Belind Këlliçi last year.
According to the charges, Molla and Qato were the de facto owners of a private company participating in tenders issued by a number of public institutions, including the UKT itself. On paper, the company was owned by a baker and had no proven track record for any of the types of projects it won tenders for. In the period 2016–2020, this company (Igor Elektrik, a.k.a V.A.S Konstruksion, a.k.a. 5D Konstruksion) won 7 different tenders from the UKT, for which Molla and Qato, as well as seven others are currently under investigation:
Construction of water depot (2016): Igor Elektrik and Kola Invest awarded the tender for 4.795.344,00 ALL (no other competitors in the tender);
Construction of water network (2017): Igor Elektrik and Kola Invest awarded the tender for 14 047 079,00 (competing against one other consortium, also including Igor Elektrik and Kola Invest);
Reconstruction of sanitation depots (2017): Rej and Igor Elektrik awarded the tender for 9.933.768,00 (competing against one other consortium, also including Rej and Igor Elektrik);
Reconstruction of pumping stations and network (2017): Igor Elektrik, Rruga Ura Asfaltim Nr 2 Elbasan, and Delia Impex awared the tender for 33.303.253,00 ALL;
Reconstruction of the water network (2018): 5D konstruksion awarded the tender for 6.824.486,00 ALL;
Construction of public sanitation network (2020): V.A.S Konstruksion and Senka awarded the tender for 29.347.096,00 ALL;
Construction of public sanitation network (2020): V.A.S Konstruksion, Beis, and Meteo awarded the tender for 113.715.031,50 ALL;
These tenders add up to a total of 221,966,057 ALL or about 2 million EUR. To this we can add more than a dozen other tenders from other public institutions in Tirana and elsewhere, for the construction of roads, sports facilities, and most recently the prestigious reconstruction of the Kinostudio complex at a price tag of 345.099.918,00 ALL (~3.4 million EUR), several of which are now also under investigation of SPAK for irregularities.
This self-dealing of public tenders should come as no surprise. For nearly a decade, public procurement procedures in Albania have been tainted by unfair dealings, insider knowledge, price gouging by cartels, and various other techniques that inflate the cost and lower the quality offered to Albanian taxpayers. These have all been well documented.
The main question is how far up inside the Muncipality of Tirana there was knowledge of the enrichment that took place. Reporter, citing from the dossier, already noted that the administrator of 5D Konstruksion was ordered to participate in the political campaign for the Socialist Party, considering that the company was “state-owned.” This suggests a much wider knowledge of the dealings of 5D Konstruksion than only its owners.
Another company partially owned by Redi Molla, Mediterranean Investment Group, received in 2021 from Minister of Environment and Tourism Mirela Kumbaro the status of “startegic investment” for a five-star hotel project in Durrës. The Strategic Investment Law, initially pitched as a way of attracting foreign direct investment, has been used mainly to profit construction projects by the major oligarchs of the country, waving taxes, privatizing publicly owned land for pennies on the dollar, and providing state support for infrastructure such as water and waste management to serve the “investment.” The reality of the Strategic Investment Law is thus a massive, uncontrolled hemorrhaging of public money toward (favored) private entities.
So imagine the following: Molla owned a company that received tenders from public institutions that he himself approved, and the public money he profited from these tenders he subsequently invested in a private project that received tax major breaks from government that he served. At every step, the Albanian public pays the bill. At every step, a politically connected individual profits financially from taxpayers’ money. And this is only a single example. How many others have followed this same path?
Mayor of Tirana Erion Veliaj himself is rumored to be one of the main shareholders in this hotel in Durrës, hiding behind the nominal shareholders Gazmend Haxhia, Redi Molla, Dritan Kadiu, and Bledar and Elvin Tivari. The SPAK dossier on 5D Konstruksion indeed contains communication referring to “Lali Eri” as one of the owners. This would seem reason enough for SPAK to call upon Veliaj to testify to the correctness of this claim.
That this entire affair is indeed rattling Veliaj’s cage is clear from the video statement he released on YouTube. After stating that he cannot possibly comment on the legal proceedings, he continues by praising Molla, Qato, and Taulant Tusha, the former Director of Public Works who is being prosecuted for violating tender procedures in the same case. But then he opens a direct attack on the above line of questioning:
Now there is a question, as brutal as it is banal, that is usually raised by medieval inquisitors, modern secret service officers, and media prosecutors in television booths, whenever SPAK acts against a specific official: How is it possible that Edi Rama did not know this and is it possible that even his deputy, a person who is currently being sought by the justice system, is able to commit these great crimes for which he is accused, without the blessing of the prime minister?
Veliaj compares himself directly to Prime Minister Edi Rama, recalling the case of former Deputy Prime Minister Arben Ahmetaj, who is currently hiding in Switzerland from another SPAK arrest warrant. The underlying message is clear: if this “witch hunt” is bringing me down, I will pull you down with me. You are just like me. A shot across the bow, as one would say.
He continues to claim, with as much delusion as he can muster, that in “no democratic country” the criminal prosecution of three senior directors would affect the standing of their direct political and administrative superior, who is already under suspicion in at least one other case, namely the public tenders for the incinerators that never existed… The reality, of course, is that in any “democratic country” the politically responsible action would be to resign.
Prime Minister Rama responded on Facebook:
I COULDN’T BE MORE IN AGREEMENT with what mayor Erion Veliaj said today to the citizens of Tirana, in a message directly linked to SPAK’s arrest of several former directors and directors of the municipality!
Public procurement, strategic investments, SPAK, Veliaj’s vile shenanigans, Rama’s Trumpian Facebook posts. Little seems to have changed since I retired from writing for Exit Albania in 2018, but here we are again.
Let us think of the Rama government as a flower that bloomed in 2013 and bore fruit – strange fruit indeed – in 2017 and 2021. Now we have arrived at the moment at which this fruit, so rich and opulent, has begun to rot. This is a rot that is spreading inside the government itself, as it dominates nearly every single institution, municipality, neighborhood, and street. Its enemies defeated or subdued, it has no other choice but to turn onto itself, the right hand stealing from the left, the left foot kicking against the right shin. “How is it possible that his deputy…?” “I wholeheartedly agree, with regard to your former directors and directors…”
The sweetness of fruit has been sickening, but the rot – this rot I want to smell.
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