The Vetting Show, News24
TRIPORT VLORA
In 2022, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy signed the concession contract for the construction and maintenance of the integrated port “Triport Vlorë”. This project was presented as an impressive project, which would aim to influence the increase in tourist flows and improve the infrastructure in function of maritime trade. The port, which is still under construction today, would be located 9 km northeast of the coastal city, 160 kilometers north of the land border with the Greek state and 167 kilometers from the largest border point of Greece.
The competition for this project was opened in 2021, at a value of 59 million lek, and until then, the only competitors were the companies “Premium Construction and Maintenance”, “ITE Group”, “Agbes Construction”, “AnkonStudio” and “BESTA”. However, these companies decided to merge, forming the concession company “Vlora Harbor Construction & Maintenance”, with administrator Mustafa Muço. Considering their previously submitted offer, at a value of about 4.06 billion lek, the contracting authority, in this case the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy, decided to announce this merger as the winner on October 21, 2021. Six months later, the contract was signed between the ministry and the new concession company on the market, for a duration of one decade.
In terms of ownership structure, three of these companies held the highest percentage of shares and represented the main players in this project, while the other two companies owned smaller shares. Just a few months after their creation and the signing of the contract, in September 2022, this company structure began to change significantly.
Three of the companies, “Agbes Construction”, “ArkonStudio” and “BESTA”, decided to sell their shares for amounts that are considered symbolic compared to the value of the investment. These shares went to “Premium Construction and Maintenance”, with administrator Hektor Agalliu, and “ITE Group”, with administrator Sokol Zotaj, with prices ranging from 2,500 to 3,000 euros. When a company leaves such a project by transferring its shares, it also removes the financial or technical capacities that it may have presented during the competition process.
On the other hand, the company "Premium Construction and Maintenance", with administrator Hektor Agalliu, was established only four months before winning the concession contract and had an initial capital of 10 thousand new lek.
"A company like Triporti, which has an initial capital of 100 thousand lek, has absolutely no capital to start the investment and they go and take the concession with their hands in their pockets, which means that they don't even have money to invest initially. This is precisely the shield that serves for money laundering, which we will use to launder this public investment," Jorida Tabaku tells "Vetting".
According to opencorporates.al data, this company owns 92% of the shares of the concession company, created for the construction of the Vlora Triport. Despite this dominant ownership, the company continues to result in financial losses since its creation in 2022, recording a minus of tens of millions of lek.
The contract also provides for the obligation to submit periodic reports at least once a year on the progress of the works, the use of financial and human resources, and their insurance. Also, the concession contract of the Triport of Vlora itself, specifically Article 8, which deals with the contract guarantee, requires that the company must provide the state with a financial guarantee from a bank or insurance company, that it is capable of building and covering this project, and this guarantee could be used immediately by the ministry if the latter did not see the fulfillment of the contract obligations.
"It is a very big coincidence that two different companies, which have received two different concessions, end up in two individuals, who have no capital, no experience, who are simple employees at the end of the day and do not justify this investment. What role does the contracting authority play here? Where is the Ministry of Industry and Energy, because they are the contracting authority? What control do they do?" Tabaku further argues.
According to economic expert Zef Preçi, these are conditions of lack of transparency and, secondly, they remain under pressure from the corrupt interests of responsible officials, who turn into barriers and in some cases force businesses to go through these avenues or take responsibility beyond the legal authority they may have.
"Simply on the appearance that he could be a public figure with his name, several concessions have been obtained as strategic investors, at a time when it is understood or known that this person does not have the financial, monetary capacities to be declared as such," says lawyer Redi Ramaj.
Left as only two companies in the structure, the companies associated with Agalliu and Zotaj decide to pledge their quotas for the Vlora Triport to the Bank of Tirana, on March 16, 2023.
The pledge agreement required that any new quotas that these companies would own in the future in this company, as well as their rights related to the quota, would be pledged to this bank. On the other hand, placing the quotas as pledges to the Bank of Tirana does not constitute a guarantee for the actual fulfillment of the project within the established criteria or deadlines. This is because the bank is not responsible for its technical implementation, but only for the financial relationship arising from the pledge agreement.
"This is not only about bank loans, this is also about fiscal favors, because these companies with strategic investor status do not even pay taxes. This is about property theft," said MP Jorida Tabaku.
The case of the Vlora Triport concession, according to experts, shows that even though the law exists, in practice it often remains at a theoretical level.
"The six-time amendment of the law on strategic investments, as a temporary law, up to the latest proposal for granting tourist ports to strategic investors without competition, reveals the major problem of avoiding competition, as a constitutional provision, and at the same time the lack of transparency in most of these investments has made it impossible to ever understand where the public benefit lies," argues economic expert Preçi.
"The knowledge of the government alone, saying 'I know, we will give it to this party', is not enough even in the concept of the law itself that the Albanian government and the Albanian Parliament have approved," explains Ramaj.
Various specialists raise the alarm that there should be clear legal requirements for a detailed control at the moments when concession competitions are opened, as well as an even more detailed control over the companies that seek to participate in these competitions. They emphasize that this type of model of a market without competition, of a competition without competition, of a change of shareholders immediately after winning the tender, concession or strategic investment, damages the Albanian economy, by diverting attention from capable Albanian or foreign investors.
