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Balluk's director campaigns for the minister, drives around in the car of the company that awarded him millions of euros in tenders

Politiko 2025-05-16 21:23:19

Balluk's director campaigns for the minister, drives around in the car of

One of the main concerns of democratic systems is the integrity of public institutions, and depending on how these agencies work, the fate of citizens' tax management, the level of corruption, the meritocracy of administrative employees... and sometimes not only the quality of governance, but also the deformation of the will of citizens through voting.

To understand how the threads of power, administration employees, money and private sector interests work, let's look at a flagrant case with the director of the Albanian Road Authority himself, one of the institutions with the largest public procurement budget in Albania. Gentian Gjyli held the position of deputy director general of the ARRSH until March 2024 and after the arrest of the head of this institution, Evis Berber, for corruption and money laundering, he took the position of director general of the ARRSH. Gjyli parades almost every day alongside the minister who appointed him, inspecting roads, construction sites and daily work that is the responsibility of this institution. But this is just a facade!

Gentian Gjyli, as the head of an institution, must properly manage the taxes of Albanian citizens and be responsible for the smooth running of the affairs he is responsible for. But this is not the criterion for being an employee, especially a head of the administration in Albania today. Throughout the campaign, Director Gjyli seems to have been strongly engaged with the Socialist Party campaign in the Lushnja area, a unit of the Fier district where the political leader is Minister Belinda Balluku herself.

And the fact that an administration director receives his salary from citizens' taxes and campaigns for the one who appointed him to this position is the smallest violation, because coincidence led us to discover a scandalous detail with an open conflict of interest. While colleague Matilda Prendi was confronting Mr. Gjyli about the road without a construction permit that was being built at the entrance to Shkodra, the latter refused to answer and immediately left for his car, a black Toyota Land Cruiser SUV from 2015 with the license plate AA 902 MA. Which is neither his personal, nor the road authority's, nor rented for the campaign.

Because this car is registered as the property of the Albavia company, a company in the field of civil and infrastructure works, which has received millions of euros in public works contracts - a significant part of which came from the Albanian Road Authority itself! We only need to look at the bridges and road works of art in every corner of Albania, where the name of this company is written, to understand its great importance in this sector. But why did the director of the Road Authority have to use this company's car and violate the law on the financing of political parties but also the law on the conflict of interest of public officials? He can answer this question himself.

While we can remind them that the law on financing political parties stipulates that the financial and material resources of political parties consist of membership fees, public funds and non-public funds, which can be financial donations, donations in kind, services, sponsorships or guarantees. All these funds must be registered in a special register and declared.

On the other hand, the law on the prevention of conflict of interest determines that the private interests of an official are those interests that stem from property rights and obligations of any nature and prohibits the conclusion of public contracts by any official who exercises functions and has essential and determining competence in the decision-making process of the evaluation of contract providers. So, explained very simply, an official who has the power to give public money in favor of private individuals or companies cannot accept gifts or favors from the latter.

But let's clarify a little about the Toyota used by Director Gjyli, and what kind of interest the Albavia company has with it. This company, which is owned by Shkëlqim Rakipaj with 48% of the shares and Hasan Hafizi with 52% of the quotas, has received a total of 46.4 million euros from public contracts from 2019 to date, of which a full 44.5 million euros are funds provided by the Albanian Road Authority.

As the sole operator, Albavia has received 3 contracts from the ARA worth 30 million euros, one for the completion of works and connecting roads on the Eastern Ring Road lot 2 worth 10 million euros excluding VAT in January 2022, another for the construction of the Berat-Ballaban road worth 18.4 million euros excluding VAT won in May 2023, where Mr. Gjyli held the position of deputy director of the ARA and the last one in November 2024 for the completion of works on the Qukës-Qafë Plloçë segment worth 3.35 million euros excluding VAT, where Mr. Gjyli is the one who announced the competition and signed the contract!

We cannot say whether these contracts were awarded through fair competition or not. We cannot even say that they were awarded in exchange for the use of an SUV for campaign purposes. In fact, we brought up a fact, and we cannot say anything more until the director himself answers for this scandal, which really needs an explanation./ Piranja