Belinda Balluku's directors/Rioshes who are "building" Albania by taking tenders for family members

Spartak Kovaçi, the former director of the Durrës Water Company, will be remembered mostly for two things. First, because under his administration, the Durrës Water Company went bankrupt, while the second record is that he awarded tenders to his family.

After the Kovaçi scandal broke out in public and after the media reported that BKH investigators raided his office, in March of last year, Belinda Balluku was forced to remove him from office, replacing him with Gerald Dautaj. But although he left the management of Ujësjelës, Mr. Kovaçi has not left the benefits of public water supply tenders. And the latter is a very big deal.

At the end of last year, the National Water Supply and Sewerage Agency opened a tender worth 8.9 million euros for the new sewage system in the Spille area. Only two offers were submitted in the competition. The one from the merger of the companies 2T and Adriatik worth 8.4 million euros and the second offer from the company Fusha worth 8.85 million euros, very close to the limit fund.

The Water Supply and Sewerage Agency announced the winner of the merger of the companies 2T and Adriatik. The first company is widely known to the public as the builder of Prime Minister Edi Rama's apartment in Surrel. It is owned by two shareholders, one of whom is Artan Sako, the brother of the former commander of the Guard, Gramoz Sako.

While the second company is known as Spartak Kovaç's family company, as the owner of 100 percent of its shares is Petrit Kovaçi, the father of the former director of Durrës Waterworks.

Crying over Albania's troubles

The official who signed the 8.4 million euro tender for Kovaçi is Klevis Jahaj, the general director of the National Water Supply and Sewerage Agency. Mr. Jahaj and Mr. Kovaçi are no strangers to each other. Together they have cried out for Albania's troubles, working day and night to solve them and develop the country.

In this photo, Jahaj and Kovaçi appear at a meeting led by Emirjana Sako, where the foundations were laid for the reform of the Water Supply and Sewerage sector in Durrës with a plan to increase investments on a regional scale. And the investments are apparently in a closed cycle. Those who make investment decisions, after the meetings are over, sign tenders to each other.

But this is a tender that has another peculiarity. All the contestants are people under investigation or under surveillance by SPAK.

Businessman Shkëlqim Fusha is under a mandatory appearance order in the Veliaj case, while Sako and Spartak Kovaçi are under investigation and have been summoned several times to the SPAK offices.

However, the threads of these characters with power resemble those of a spider. Mr. Kovaçi is building a luxury hotel in Durrës. Called Azure Elegance Hotel, the permit for it was obtained in May 2023 by the Adriatic Union company. The latter was owned at the time by two shareholders, Petrit Kovaçi and Genti Klosi, brother of the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, Ceno Klosi.

Later, after obtaining permission with Edi Rama's signature, Genti Klosi sold the shares for a symbolic price and Petrit Kovaçi became 100 percent owner of the company. It is not known whether the sale was real, as a series of investigations by SPAK have shown that in many cases the owners on paper and the actual owners of the companies do not match.

Several media reports have revealed that the Deputy Minister of Energy and the former director of the Durrës Waterworks have close family ties, being cousins, but Kapital has not been able to verify this information with maximum certainty.

State of the Art
Historically, infrastructure has been one of the most corrupt sectors of public life in Albania. But especially in recent years, corruption in this sector has reached a level that the English call "State of the Art".

Now it no longer occurs only in the form of bribery, but with the direct involvement of public officials in tenders. A large 5D spread everywhere. From the roads to the water supply, where traces of the blood of robbery with youthful faces are found everywhere.

These are the so-called Balluk boys, a series of young directors who run the country's most important companies and agencies, where billions of lek are procured every year. In the ARA, Sewerage and Energy, tenders and concessions are flooding in, often to companies linked to young people or their families.

And while some of them fall captive to SPAK along the way, there are always others in line. Word gets out, an Evis falls to ARRSH, a Klevis rises to the sewers./ Taken from Kapitali.al