The show "On Target" on News24, published this Tuesday new details from the geological report for the "Elbasan-Qafë Thanë" road, which was suddenly damaged on February 21, leaving citizens from Prrenjas to Leskovik in isolation, after the only node connecting them to the rest of Albania "gave up".
According to the data made public, it is established that the landslide of the road was warned by the two engineers who compiled the geological report, a 10-page document prepared by the companies 'Infrakonsult' and 'HMK Consulting'. The report bears the signatures of engineers Ramazan Myrto and Aranit Kacdedja.
In 2021, Ramazan Myrto turned out to have worked as a geological engineer for the company 'Fusha Shpk', which, as we will show below, benefited from one of the Elbasan-Qafë Thanë construction lots, while Aranit Kacdedja worked as an engineer for the company 'Nord Comat'.=
Regarding the geological report prepared on behalf of the Redi Struga company 'Infrakonsult', the two engineers, among other things, on page 5 of the report, have issued a warning about landslides that may occur due to non-natural causes.
"In this valley, structural-erosive relief forms are characteristic, such as steepness and tectonic fault lines (better expressed on the left side of the valley), structural terraces, litho-structural sills, etc.
Among the most widespread forms of fluvial relief, we highlight several terracotta levels with fragmentary distribution, sand dunes with non-uniform development, depositional cones, and deep canyon-type pits.
Erosive-denudative relief forms are widespread in this valley.
The landslides are related to the spread of clays, tectonic faults, springs that come into contact with the molasses, the numerous rains that fall in this valley, and the disruption of the slope's equilibrium by lateral and in-depth erosion of Shkumbini.
"Anthropogenic landslides may also be encountered from the construction of engineering works," the report states.
The last sentence is clear enough, where, although briefly, engineers warn that human intervention for the construction of engineering works causes landslides in the area.
This data, proven in the official tender documents for the construction of this road segment, indicates that one of the factors that may have influenced the collapse of the road was precisely the works being carried out by the 'ANK' company in the area in question.
For two months, the Elbasan Prosecutor's Office has been conducting investigations into the road collapse, and so far there has been no conclusion to the investigations.
What is known so far is that the prosecution has seized volumes of documents from the design and construction tender for the road, where it is expected to be revealed whether all technical criteria for the construction of this vital work were implemented.
The construction of the Elbasan-Qafë Thanë road is suspected to be being carried out without the construction permit being issued.
From the research of our journalists, it turns out that the National Territorial Council has formally approved construction permits for 7 out of 8 lots where work has begun on the construction of 27 kilometers of the Elbasan-Qafë Thanë axis.
The construction permit for Lot 1 was approved on March 8, 2023, or four months after the contract for the start of construction work on this road was signed.
According to data, ARRSH and the company 'Alb-Builidng' have signed a contract to start work on December 5, 2022.
Even 'Në Shënjestër' reveals that Belinda Balluku has signed a payment of 2.3 million euros for 'Alb-Building'.
The construction permit has not yet been approved. In total, for this lot 'Alb-Builidng' has received 25 million euros in payments from the state treasury, or in other words, all the payments foreseen in the contract.
But the biggest scandal lies in the fact that the construction permit for Lot 1 has not yet been published on the official website of the Agency for Territorial Development, even though this segment is almost completely finished and is currently functional for vehicles.
For Lot 2, 'Në Shënjestër' was unable to provide data on whether the construction permit has been approved, while for Lots 3 and 4, the construction permit was approved on September 25, 2024.
Even in these two cases, the construction permit was approved several months late, as the ARRSH for Lot 3 signed a contract with the company '2T' and 'HASTOÇI' on December 19, 2023, about 10 months before the construction permit was approved.
Excerpts from the documentary
For ten days, Albanians from Prrenjas to Leskovik tried to live as if they were on the infamous Alcatraz Island, after the only link connecting them to the rest of Albania, the Elbasan-Qafë Thanë road, suddenly surrendered at noon on February 21.
The road, which was built 30 years ago, and which in three decades had counted millions of vehicles of various tonnages passing through it every day, suddenly collapsed at a place called "Arrat e Gurrës".
Initially it was thought to be just a minor slip.
But soon, the mountainside showed its strength, pushing the foundations of the road to shift several meters and as a result, the road over a length of 150 meters collapsed.
The landslide occurred while work was being done in the same area to construct the roadbed of the Elbasan-Qafë Thanë corridor, in Lot 7.
Within a few hours, a road that carried thousands of citizens and goods every day turned into an impassable obstacle.
And with it, a vital artery to the southeast of the country was cut off.
First came the chaos.
Vehicles blocked on both sides of the segment. Trucks transporting goods left in the middle of the road. Citizens getting out of their cars and continuing on foot.
The Albanian Road Authority announced a complete blockade of the axis and offered an alternative: the Maliq-Gramsh road, but this segment was narrow and also had landslide problems, adding even more chaos.
In the absence of a functional road, history went back about 2 years.
The 'Egnatia' road was brought back into use as an alternative route.
Every day, dozens of drivers take the risk of crossing difficult and dangerous segments.
As the chaos increased, the damage to businesses, the economy, tourism, healthcare, and above all, the free movement of people and goods, began to have devastating consequences for citizens.
But as the consequences mounted, institutions quickly began to evade responsibility.
The construction works for lot 7 are being carried out by the company 'ANK' shpk, which has other stories of road landslides, but officials from the Ministry of Infrastructure, the Geological Service, and even Prime Minister Edi Rama himself quickly rushed to hold the company that was building the new road accountable, blaming the landslide on the rainfall.
Even the prime minister himself, on March 7, while inspecting the disaster area, gave the verdict that the landslide was not related to the works being carried out on the road by the 'ANK' company, but according to him, geology was to blame.
"This synchronization of statements, when there were still no proper engineering studies and results, raised quite a few doubts about the real reasons for the road landslide," Prime Minister Edi Rama would say.
For their part, experts stated that despite the problematic terrain, the fault lies precisely with the design and project implementation.
Xhevair Ngjeqari testified to this on News 24, stating that the cause of the slide was the lack of control over the projects.
"Lot 7 of the Elbasan-Qafë Thanë road began construction in July 2024. The tender for this lot was announced on April 3, while the winner with a bid of 27.5 million euros for the construction of about 5.5 km of road is the company 'ANK' shpk", declared expert Xhevair Ngjeqari on News 24.
The company 'ANK' shpk is owned by citizen Agim Kola, brother of former socialist MP, Ndue Kola.
We recall that the same company also built the Korçë-Ersekë road, which also collapsed in February 2024, just a few months before Belinda Balluku awarded the tender for Lot 7 of the Elbasan-Qafë Thanë road. The supervisor in Lot 7 of Elbasan-Qafë Thanë is also the same company, 'A&E Engineering', of Entela Çanos, which was both the supervisor and designer of the Korçë-Ersekë road.
Therefore, it remains unexplained how Belinda Balluku and Edi Rama, just a few months after these two companies were put in the spotlight for the collapse of the Korçë-Ersekë road, entrusted them with the construction of a section of the Elbasan-Qafë Thanë road, which, as it turned out, suffered the same fate.
But let's stick to the facts.
While Prime Minister Edi Rama blamed geology for the road landslides, documents show other data, and the landslide was even warned.
What you see on the screen is the Geological Report, a 10-page document prepared by the companies 'Infrakonsult' and 'HMK Consulting'. The report bears the signatures of engineers Ramazan Myrto and Aranit Kacdedja.
In 2021, Ramazan Myrto turned out to have worked as a geological engineer for the company 'Fusha Shpk', which, as we will show below, benefited from one of the Elbasan-Qafë Thanë construction lots, while Aranit Kacdedja worked as an engineer for the company 'Nord Comat'.
Regarding the geological report prepared on behalf of the Redi Struga company 'Infrakonsult', the two engineers, among other things, on page 5 of the report, have issued a warning about landslides that may occur due to non-natural causes.
However, the show 'Në Shënjestër' has gone further.
The construction of the Elbasan-Qafë Thanë road is suspected to be being carried out without the construction permit being issued.
From the research of our journalists, it turns out that the National Territorial Council has formally approved construction permits for 7 out of 8 lots where work has begun on the construction of 27 kilometers of the Elbasan-Qafë Thanë axis.
The construction permit for Lot 1 was approved on March 8, 2023, or four months after the contract for the start of construction work on this road was signed.
According to data, ARRSH and the company 'Alb-Builidng' have signed a contract to start work on December 5, 2022.
Even 'Në Shënjestër' reveals that Belinda Balluku has signed a payment of 2.3 million euros for 'Alb-Building'.
The construction permit has not yet been approved. In total, for this lot 'Alb-Builidng' has received 25 million euros in payments from the state treasury, or in other words, all the payments foreseen in the contract.
But the biggest scandal lies in the fact that the construction permit for Lot 1 has not yet been published on the official website of the Agency for Territorial Development, even though this segment is almost completely finished and is currently functional for vehicles.
For Lot 2, 'Në Shënjestër' was unable to provide data on whether the construction permit has been approved, while for Lots 3 and 4, the construction permit was approved on September 25, 2024.
Even in these two cases, the construction permit was approved several months late, as the ARRSH for Lot 3 signed a contract with the company '2T' and 'HASTOÇI' on December 19, 2023, about 10 months before the construction permit was approved.
Meanwhile, for Lot 5, the contract was also signed on December 19, 2023, or about 10 months before the construction permit was approved.
Meanwhile, for lot 6, Belinda Balluku signed 1.9 million euros for the company 'ANK', just one month after the contract for the construction of the road was signed, and 9 months before the construction permit was approved by the KKT.
As in the case of Lot 1, for Lots 3 and 4 it turns out that the construction permit has not yet been issued.
On June 4, 2025, at the meeting of the National Territorial Council, construction permits for lots 5,6.7, and 8 were formally approved.
Even in these four lots, works for the construction of the Elbasan-Qafë Thanë road have begun without a construction permit.
As we noted above, the construction permit was approved in June 2025, while works under the contract began in July 2024.
This is also evidenced by the fact that the ARRSH has made payments to the companies, just a few weeks after signing the contract for the construction of the four lots. Even in this case, the National Territorial Council has only formally approved the construction permit for 7 out of 8 lots of the Elbasan-Qafë Thanë highway, while none of the permits have been disclosed.
Practically, works on the Elbasan-Qafë Thanë highway have begun and are being carried out without a construction permit, or at least, the Agency for Territorial Development does not publish them to the public.
But hiding construction permits is not an unknown case.
We recall that a similar situation occurred with the Llogara tunnel, where works not only began without the construction permit being issued, but the latter was signed by the head of the AZHT, Adelaida Roko, only in May 2025, after the tunnel had been completed.
From the revelation of the construction permit, the media also published a scandal where the Llogara tunnel was missing and this bridge that you see in the video and photo, for which to this day neither the Minister of Infrastructure nor SPAK have said why it is missing.
Therefore, it remains in the hands of the Elbasan Prosecutor's Office to clarify not only the causes of the road collapse, but also whether the works in this segment are being carried out with a construction permit or whether all the work is being carried out illegally.
The show 'Në Shënjestër' has sent ARRSH and AZHT several questions regarding the project, the causes of the road collapse and above all the lack of a construction permit.
We remain awaiting the response of the institutions, which have the duty to inform not only Albanian citizens, who will pay hundreds of millions of euros for the construction of this road, but also partner countries, which have classified Corridor VIII as part of Europe's strategic nodes.
