A 28-year-old man has lost his life on Tuesday while working on a construction site. This is the second death of its kind in the last week.
The man was working on scaffolding when he slipped and fell to his death. The police arrested the owner of the villa he was working on as it was being constructed illegally. They also declared the administrator of the firm as wanted.
On the 4 of September, a construction worker also fell to their death in Tirana. In 2020 there have been at least eight similar deaths on construction sites. In January alone, there were three such deaths in a month. In June, a 17-year-old was killed while working illegally on a building site.
In 2016, Ardit Gjoklaj, another 17-year-old boy died after being hit by an excavator while working at the Sharra landfill in Tirana. He was employed illegally and without social security by the private-public partnership promoted by Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj as an exemplary opportunity for work.
In 2019, a total of 34 workers were killed at work between January and November, 15 of which were construction workers. These figures make the construction industry the most dangerous for working. Some 1028 construction permits were issued in Tirana between 2017 and 2019 covering almost 3 million square metres. Concerns have been raised over the apparent construction boom and links to money laundering and other forms of corruption and illegality.
