Prime Minister Edi Rama will testify this month before the parliamentary committee on waste incinerators.
MP Jorida Tabaku, who is heading the committee’s work, stated in a press statement from parliament that Rama had confirmed his testimony.
On Monday, the committee approved its inquiry plan, which includes the questioning of a number of government and public administration officials, as well as businessmen and journalists.
Besides Rama, former Minister of Finance Arben Ahmetaj, former Minister of Energy Damian Gjiknuri, former Minister of Environment Lefter Koka, Secretary General of the Council of Ministers Engjell Agaci, Mayors of Tirana, Elbasan and Fier are among the highest officials called to testify between 21-23 February.
The committee will wrap up its inquiry on February 25.
It restarted work today, after attempts by its Socialist members to block the inquiry plan and avoid testimonies by declaring its term ended.
Last week, the parliament reconfirmed the committee’s term to last for three more weeks, a decision that was immediately greeted by the US and EU ambassadors in Albania, who also urged justice institutions to take action in this case.
A newly set-up company, with no capital or experience, presented an unsolicited proposal to construct an incinerator in Elbasan in 2014.
After that, the government approved the construction of three waste incinerators in Tirana, Elbasan and Fier, through public-private partnership contracts, given to the same group of people owning newly established companies, through dubious and hasty procedures.
This was further exacerbated by the terms of the contracts, which appeared to favor the companies, to the detriment of taxpayers. The government has been paying the concessionaires before the construction is completed – €72 million were paid from 2015 to 2020. It also has to compensate them when they do not have any waste to burn.
In December 2021, prosecutors ordered the arrest of former minister Lefter Koka, who faces corruption and money laundering charges in relation to his signature of a concession contract with Integrated Energy BV SPV for the construction of an incinerator in Tirana, only two weeks before leaving office in 2017.
Prosecutors Dritan Premçi and Vladimir Mara are investigating the two other incinerators in Elbasan and Fier.
While taxpayers’ money continues to flow from the government to concessionaire companies, despite their owners being wanted by prosecutors and police since December, only one of the three incinerators has started operations.
The opposition maintains that officials who have organized and managed this alleged corruption affair worth €430 million constitute a “structured criminal group” – a special classification in the Albanian law, with harsher sentences for its criminal activity.
