How did the incinerator's money fly with prepayments for work that was never done?

In 2022, the Tirana incinerator concession company, Integrated Energy BV, prepaid 1 billion 167 million lek, or about 11.3 million euros at the current exchange rate, to Klodian Zoto's ITS company. The money was paid in advance for work that Zoto's company would perform at the Tirana landfill. But the works were never completed. A few months after the payment of the money, precisely in December 2022, Zoto's ITS was seized by SPAK. The money was gone.

The advance payment of 11.3 million euros for Zoto's company was one of the biggest valves of the Tirana incinerator's money, but not the only one. Kapitali.al exclusively publishes the financial movements of the Tirana incinerator concession company, which cause the disappearance of tens of millions of euros from the company as prepayments, loans given to other companies or unpaid debits.

According to the balance, apart from ITS, the company Integrated Energy BV has prepaid 1.3 million euros to De Mare, 670 thousand euros to Hydros and about 370 thousand euros to the parent company Geogenix. In total, a full 13.6 million euros were extracted from the concessionaire company through prepayments for works that were never performed.

Loans and clearing

However, this advance payment was only one of the channels of taking money out of the company. Another channel was that of giving loans to other companies, connected to the same people. According to the balance sheet, it appears that the company Integrated Energy has given over 550 thousand euros to Elton Bualli. The money was loaned for the famous greenhouse, next to the Sharra landfill.

Elton Bualli is an employee of Mertir and Zoto companies. His name became public for the first time, where it turned out that he had received over 300,000 euros in grants from AZHBR as IPARD funds for the construction of a greenhouse next to the Sharra landfill. The company that had applied for the grant was Consulting SE Partners of Stela Gugalles. So cashing in on the type.

The third channel of taking money out of the company has been that of uncollected debts. According to Integrated Energy's balance sheet, it appears that the company has left over 12 million euros uncollected from other entities, mainly builders, who have deposited soil and inerts in the landfill. It is suspected that a part of this money was taken in the form of clearing as apartments or business units in Tirana by the people who ran the incinerator.

In total, there are 26 million euros spent only through these forms, the vast majority of which have zero chance of being collected now that the company is under state administration. The most significant case is that of the advance payment for ITS, money which is now irrecoverable because the company is confiscated.

A mess of accounts

The concession of the phantom incinerator of Tirana has cost the public budget of Albanian taxpayers 7.5 billion lek or about 73 million euros from the first day of the contract's entry into force until today. Official data from the state treasury show that for the period 2017-2018, the municipalities of the Tirana district paid the concessionaire 977 million lek as a waste disposal fee. While for the period 2019-2023, another 6.5 billion ALL were paid.

These are only the payments that were made by the municipalities of Tirana and Durrës districts, not including the income that the concessionaire received from the builders for the deposit of soil and inerts. This amount is not known exactly how much it is, but it is believed to be at least over 30 million euros for the entire period. But even though it has received over 100 million euros in revenue, the company has made only 30 million euros of investments, according to her.

The biggest question in the incinerator affair, for which even SPAK has not given an exhaustive answer, was where the incinerator money went. During the interview for çim Peka, Mirel Mërtiri stated that the total expenses incurred by the concession company in the Tirana landfill were 71 million euros. According to him, apart from the 30 million euros invested, the company has also spent over 40 million euros as operating costs for the daily operation of the landfill.

But the figures published on the company's balance sheet give a clearer picture of where the money went. They were taken out of the company by the same people who controlled it and then disappeared into bribery bags or offshore accounts outside Albania./ Kapitali