Muçollari: The government, with Rama's 'blessing', engages in international trafficking, exports 20 thousand tons of toxic waste

DP leadership member Grigels Muçollari, in a statement to the media held today, stated that new reports regarding the 102 containers with hazardous waste, now closed in Porto Romano, show how deeply involved the government is in what is known as illegal international trafficking of hazardous waste.

Full speech:

While there is still no transparency about the 102 containers of hazardous waste, suspected of being toxic substances, now closed in Porto Romano, new reports show how deeply involved the government is in what is known as the illegal international trafficking of hazardous waste.

As we have repeatedly denounced from the field and from this platform, the quantity seized and returned in July of last year was not the only shipment departing from the port of Durres.

The Birn agency says that based on information obtained through right-to-information requests, it has discovered that between 2020 and 2023, an amount of around 20 thousand tons of hazardous waste generated in Albania was exported abroad, in violation of national and international laws.

Such trafficking, such a crime, cannot be committed without the Prime Minister's blessing.

However, two are directly responsible for this affair.

The Minister of Environment, Mirela Kumbaro, and the Director of the Port of Durres in these years, today the Minister of Defense, Pirro Vengu.

Mirela Kumbaro has allowed, with her signatures and licenses, and with her inaction, this crime to occur.

Pirro Vengu has made the infrastructure of the country's largest port available for this crime to occur.

We know that both of them have the protection of Edi Rama and the Durrës prosecution, which has launched the investigation, has no chance of reaching them.

This serious crime, which foresees strong penalties for Albania under the Basel Convention, goes one step further when the two officials who allowed the affair to happen, and who are suspected of profiting from it, will remain uninvestigated, without facing the law.

Edi Rama governed for 12 years with trafficking. With drug trafficking where he established the first drug state in Europe, and now the illegal international trafficking of hazardous waste has also been discovered.

The May 11 vote is vitally important to save the environment, to provide security and guarantees for the health of citizens, and to stop once and for all such ugly crimes with serious consequences for the lives and health of Albanians.