Under investigation and seizure by SPAK, Tirana's incinerator received 3.8 million euros in 4 months

While public investments from the state budget have suffered a significant decrease both with the plan and the fact of last year in the first three months of the year, the budget payments for the incinerator of Tirana, an object that does not exist, are marking progress.

Data from the Local Data Base of Spending Data Albania show that from January 1 to April 17, 2024, 392,334,823 ALL payments (3.8 million euros) were made by the Treasury Department to the Ministry of Finance.

On the other hand, in the first 3 months of 2023, the state budget has allocated only 4.8 billion ALL for investments. This amount is 71% lower than the 3-month 2024 plan, while it was also 61% lower than last year's fact in the same period of 2023.

Official data from the Ministry of Finance show that the investments of the first quarter of 2024 were the lowest since the first quarter of 2019, but meanwhile the capital investment fund this year is the largest in history.

The more detailed payments show that more than 60% of the payments were made by the Municipality of Tirana and the rest by the Municipalities of Durrës and Kavaja.

The Tirana incinerator, a work that does not exist and the process is under investigation and seizure by SPAK, will be financed by the taxes of Albanians with 1.27 billion lek (12 million euros) this year, with an increase of almost 20% from 2023, according forecasts in the 2024 budget.

By mid-April, 30% of the funds planned for this year for the incinerator were paid, while funds for capital investments are almost blocked.

Data from the balance sheets show that Integrated realized 9.9 billion ALL in revenue during the period 2017-2022, of which 24.7 billion ALL (23.8 million euros were profits).

The data refer that in addition to the funds for the investment of the incinerator, the company has benefited from payments from the municipalities of Durrës, Kavaja, Tirana for waste management.

The municipality of Durrës is a unique case of how it spends more than half of the income it collects on just one item, for the protection of the environment (mainly garbage cleaning). In 2022, the Municipality's own income (from taxes, fees and separate taxes) was 1.53 billion ALL, with a 3% decrease compared to the previous year, according to data from Co-Plan.

The increase in expenses for environmental protection came after the closure of the Porto Romano landfill and the sending of waste to the Sharra incinerator in Tirana.

According to the contract that the government has with the garbage concessionaire in Sharre, the cost of waste disposal is 29.05 euros/ton for the entire duration of the concession.

The data from the financial statements show that the revenues of "Integrated Energy BVSPV" were much higher than the data from the Treasury of the Ministry of Finance, because in addition to the funds for the investment of the incinerator, the company received payments from the municipalities of Durrës, Kavaja, of Tirana for waste management./Monitor