The company owned by drug trafficker Edmond Bego increased its turnover by a factor of 20 in only three years, receiving millions out of the state budget.
The balance sheets of Inerte Express, as filed at the National Registration Center (QKR), show that, from 2014 to 2017, the company’s turnover increased 20-fold, reaching 726 million lekë.
During 2012, 2013, and 2014, Bego’s company had a modest turnover from 13.4 million lekë to 52 million lekë per year. However, in 2015, immediately after it won the tender for the Elbasan highway, the company’s turnover multiplied.
Recently, the Democratic Party has accused the Rama government, and especially the head of the Socialist parliamentary group, Taulant Balla, of granting Bego clientelist tenders.
So far, PD has pointed out two cases:
- Edmond Bego’s company, Inerte Express, received €10 million since 2015, for the construction of the Elbasan highway.
- In 2018, the same company, though lacking in previous experience in building electrical substations, won a 1 billion lekë tender to build substations on behalf of the Librazhd Transmission System Operator.
The above QKR data does not yet include this 2018, 1 billion lekë tender.
