The Vetting Show, News24

On June 19, 2020, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy would open the international competition for the review of the feasibility study and the design of the engineering project "Construction of the Llogara Tunnel" with a limited fund of 624 million ALL or 6 million euros. 8 companies participated in the tunnel design competition, of which 6 were automatically disqualified by the Ministry of Infrastructure, for not fulfilling the conditions.

On October 2020, the public institution would announce the winner of the consortium of companies "SEED Consulting", "InfraKonsult", "iC Consulenten Ziviltechniker GESmbh", "ELEA iC doo" and "IBE dd svetovanje, projektiranje in inzeniring", with an offer of 618 million ALL or about 6 million euros.

The merger of the companies “SWS Engineering” spa, “LLAZO” shpk and “NET-GROUP” with a bid of 540 million lek also qualified in the competition. The latter is the company of Valter Begaj, the former partner of the former Director of the Albanian Roads Authority, Evis Berberi, both of whom were arrested and under investigation by SPAK for tenders won by the Albanian Road Authority.

After the completion of the competition for the feasibility study, on December 14, 2020, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy will open the competition for the first tender for the "Construction of the Llogara Tunnel" on the Orikum-Himar road section, part of the SH8 Highway (Vlora - Saranda) with a limit fund of 19 billion lek or 190 million euros.

This tunnel is expected to be about 6 kilometers long and starts from the Shën Eliza Bridge in the Dukat area to the Palasa Bridge. According to calculations, passing through this tunnel, at a speed of 50-80 km/h, the time to cross from one side of Llogara to the other will be 7-10 minutes. The tunnel will be connected at its entrance and exit by two bridges. The passage of road transport vehicles through this tunnel will be subject to a fee.

According to lawyer Leonard Karaj, it has been revealed that we have non-implementation of works worth up to 3 billion lek, related to bridges.

"The project clearly defines two wavy bridges, one at the entrance and one at the exit of the tunnel. These were rather two bridges that would give beauty to that work and cost 25-30 million euros. The bridges result within the project, but they were not realized if you go to the place where the project was developed," said lawyer Karaj.

But in the first tender documents, it is specified that the company that will be declared the winner will have 37 months, or one month more than three years, to complete the contract.

The competition for the tender, which would later be canceled, would show the first indications of corruption. “Vetting” would reveal with facts how in this competition companies that have the power and experience to realize such projects would be discriminated against. Specifically, according to the documents, the bidding company must demonstrate the technical capacity to realize the tunnel, as well as meet some specific conditions. According to the Standard Tender Documents (SDT), the bidding company must demonstrate successful experience as a main contractor for a contract or contracts that include the construction of at least 4 (four) bridges with a bridge length of at least 120 m.

At this stage, another question arises: Why must a company competing in this tender have built a project with 4 bridges, each 120 m long, when it can carry out the project even if it has built a bridge 500 m long?

The SPAK file shows that many companies have filed complaints about the first canceled tender before applying because there were discriminatory criteria, but these were not taken into account by the Albanian Road Authority. From the communications between Deputy Prime Minister Balluku and the former director of the ARRSH, it is revealed that for the first tender for the Llogara tunnel, Balluku would order Berber to cancel it.

Law No. 162/2020 on Public Procurement itself aims to ensure the proper use of public funds and to encourage the participation of private companies in tender procedures. In short, to implement projects according to the established conditions at the most economical price. This law even has a specific article for the case of discrimination of economic operators.

Only by ascertaining the specific criteria that were set in the tender for the construction of bridges, "Vetting" has revealed the fact that we are dealing with a violation of Article 2 of the Public Procurement Law.

This is because the Ministry of Infrastructure anticipated the submission of bids for the construction of the Llogora tunnel on February 12, 2021, but postponed this deadline until March 1, 2021. From the documents provided by "Vetting", the Ministry has made some changes regarding the criteria for companies that are interested in participating in the competition.

Specifically, there have been some changes in Chapter 12, which contains specific qualification conditions related to financial and economic capacity. It explains that for EBITDA, which is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, for the last five years, i.e. for the period 2015-2019, a figure of 50 million euros was set. In this case, this criterion has been changed and reduced to 20 million euros.

But the Ministry has not stopped there, as it has decided other clarifications for the implementation part of a similar project. If at the beginning of the tender, the companies were required to prove that in the last 5 years they had built a length of 8 kilometers of tunnel, they, in the patching of the project, are required to prove that they have implemented the project with a deadline of 3 years.

However, the tender procurement group under the leadership of Minister Balluku has not stopped there. If at the beginning of the project the company was required to have carried out similar work with a value of 70% of the contract limit fund, it is reduced to 50% of the contract limit fund.

So, the company must have implemented projects worth 9,5 billion lek or 95 million euros over the last 5 years.

Even though the Ministry changed the conditions, none of the companies managed to be declared the winner for this project.

A month later, in April 2021, the Ministry of Infrastructure would cancel the tender as none of the offers submitted by the companies met the criteria set out in the documents.

But this is not the first time that large tenders produce such situations, of major changes, which often coincide only with the demands coming from the interest groups themselves. Suspicions of corruption with public funds are reinforced by the change of documents, but also by the extension of the terms of this tender.

A few months after the cancellation of the tender for the Llogara tunnel, the Ministry of Infrastructure would re-announce the tender again with a limited fund of 18.9 billion ALL. 4 groups of companies would participate in the competition this time. After studying the tender documents, Open Data Albania marked it with a red flag.

This is because on October 8, 2021, the Ministry of Infrastructure would disqualify all participants, with the exception of the consortium of Turkish companies "INTEKAR YAPI TURIZM ELEKTRIK INSAAT" and "ASL INSAAT TAAHHUT", which were automatically declared winners with an offer of 17 billion ALL or 200 million euros with VAT.

According to Open Data, this tender poses a potential risk of corruption, due to the unclear disqualification of competitors. It is noteworthy that the group of Albanian and foreign companies, “JV CONCORD ENGINEERING AND CONTRACTING”, “ALB BUILDING” shpk and “ALB STAR”, had a lower offer than the Turkish companies worth 15.8 billion lek. So, the disqualified ones had an offer almost 12 million euros less than the winning offer.

According to the Bid Evaluation Commission, this group of companies were disqualified because they did not have any similar project for the construction of a 120 m long bridge.