The newly appointed head of the Albanian Roads Authority (ARRSH) Sonila Qato announced that the tender for Lot-1 of the Tirana Outer Ring Road has been annulled for a second time. The first annulment came after media revealed that the shell company winning the tender, DH Albania, had forged all documents.
Qato stated that none of the bidders met the criteria:
“The Commission for Offer Assessment handed a disqualification note to all companies submitting offers as they did not meet the criteria.”
Qato failed to give any information on the bidding companies or the criteria they didn’t meet. However, she informed the public that the Outer Ring Road project will continue despite citizen protests:
“Works and expropriations for the rest of lots [Lot-2 and Lot-3] will continue because this project will be implemented.”
Today, the head of the Democratic Party (PD) Lulzim Basha denounced in Parliament that the government annulled the tender because another bidder had submitted a better offer than government favorite Gjoka Konstruksion.
“I believe you already know that they annulled the Outer Ring Road tender today. [The tender] was arranged in advance to be handed to Gjoka [Konstruksion], but an unlucky [company] had also participated with an offer €5 million lower, hence making the deal fall through.”
Two weeks ago, the PD had warned about the tender being pre-arranged.
The ARRSH annulled the first lot for the Outer Ring Road project on December 7th, 2018, following news that the winning bidder DH Albania had forged tender documents. One week later, and while the prosecution had started investigations, the ARRSH reopened the call for bidding offers.
