The government does not give excuses, while continuing with the payments for the Tirana incinerator

The Ministry of Finance published the report of the Monitoring of Concessionary Contracts, but for some objects such as the Tirana incinerator, the report stopped only at the payments without explaining what works were done in the object.

The Summary Annual Report (SAR) is a document of the Ministry of Finance and Economy that includes the collection and reporting of progress and financial and non-financial performance data of concession contracts/PPP which aims to provide for the main fiscal risks from concession contracts /PPP are systematically identified and reported. But for many of the contracts the information is only partial for the part of the payments as the contracting authorities are reluctant to provide information to the Ministry of Finance.

The incinerator of Tirana, which is one of the most sensational cases of corruption that has led to high officials and the former ministry behind bars.

The Ministry of Finance clarified that with the decision of 28.07.2023 of the Special Court of the First Instance for Corruption and Organized Crime, the sequestration measure has been established for the assets of the company "Integrated Energy BV SPV" sh.pk and the company "Integrated Technology" Servis" sh.pk, companies which are administered by the Agency for the Administration of Seized and Confiscated Assets, pursuant to the legislation in force for the administration of seized and confiscated assets.

With this tag, the Agency of Confiscated Assets, depending on the Ministry of the Interior, will have to develop the works in the object while receiving the funding or return the funds to the budget. The Confiscated Assets Agency, which under its umbrella has a series of state and private businesses to administer, is receiving budget funds while the facility is not being built. From this institution, there is no information about what is done with the payments, while the report of the Contracting Authority is given in the financial report.

According to the current tab of the concession for the Tirana incinerator, the Contracting Authority of this concession are: the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy and the Ministry of Tourism and the Environment and the Involved Authority is the Municipality of Tirana and the Local Government Units of the Tirana District (see the table below)

The value of the investment is 17.1 billion Lek and the start date of the contract is August 31, 2017. o The duration of the contract is 30 years and the current phase of the project is called "Construction & Operation".

Other 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.

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 2.7 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, which 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