The Incinerators’ Affair is the gravest corruption scandal nowadays in Albania. In violation to the legal requirements in place, and the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU, the government of Edi Rama refused to pursue public tendering procedures, but is giving some 430 million euros to three now-wanted individuals who presented unsolicited proposals for the construction and operation of incinerators, first in Elbasan, later in Fier and lastly in Tirana. The three cities are less than 50 miles from each other and there was no feasibility study into why do we need so many incinerators. Furthermore, the EC had paid almost 4 million euro to prepare the Waste Strategy and Action Plan for Albania that did not foresee any incinerators.
The opposition reported that the incinerators affair is an act of corruption and identified several procedures that were ignored, starting with the avoidance of a public tender procedure. Since 2015 the Democratic Party informed members of the Municipal Council in Elbasan about the incinerator in their city as the government kept everything secret. The opposition revealed that the government pretended to have completed 9 procedures (and 14 signatures) from different agencies within a single day.
However, Edi Rama continued with his tune that the incinerators were his pride. He brought the whole Parliamentary Group of the Socialist Party at the site of the incinerator in Elbasan in 2017 and considered it as “an investment we cannot help but to be proud of”. “You haven’t seen anything yet, because this is just the beginning,” the Prime Minister swore, warning the rise of the next incinerators in Fier and later in Tirana.
The opposition started daily press conferences about the incinerators affair even asking the Prosecutors Office to reflect whether there was any tender, whether it is legal to pass 9 procedures within a single day, whether a contract would be valid if it includes articles such as “the contract cannot be void even if the recipient of the public funds fails to deliver the inputs foreseen in the contract”, and so on.
The opposition and media added pressure by revealing that it was the same individuals Klodian Zoto and Mirel Mertiri behind all three incinerators and started detailing theis ties to the government. Even the Voice of America radio reported the story that the names behind the incinerators were the same and raised concern about the inflated costs of the projects. How did Rama react then? He attacked VOA, which he said spread “hostile propaganda”.
In 2022 there was a Parliamentary Commission to investigate on the incinerators’ affair.
During his statement Edi Rama responded “They are my pride. I have followed the projects into very details, I do not sleep on them”.
Even when the opposition pinpointed to the facts that one is not functional, while two are not yet constructed in a breach of the contracts, Edi Rama told to the Members of Parliament:
“The construction of these complex works, there were problems of its own, Elbasan is a work that spoke for itself, the technicalities for energy have given other people here. Fieri has had other problems, as troops have been deployed to tell you to stop the garbage, the change of the country has been made, that these projects are one of my prides as prime minister, and there is no doubt.”
The Prosecution Office that had the investigation into the incinerators’ affair ongoing since three years, finally concluded that the same individuals (that the opposition had told since 6 years ago) are indeed the real owners behind all three incinerators.The Prosecution Office has so far arrested the former Minister of Environment and on 01 August 2023 issued an arrest warrant for the former Minister of Finance. There are about 400 individuals connected with this affair as journalists reported from the Prosecution files, and it includes the name of Edi Rama, several of his ministers and the Mayor of Tirana as well. The investigation is ongoing.
“Now the incinerators are no longer acts of pride, but a job done in good faith, which those below it have exploited to extract illegal personal gain. In short, the individual responsibility variant is the last shield left by Edi Rama to keep out the great dirt of incinerators. Politically and morally Edi Rama is the main responsibility of the incinerators’ affair. Not only because he sold the Albanians the biggest band of thieves in Albania’s history as the team that would reborn the Nation.Nor because he was unable to understand that all these were stealing behind his back. But for something too heavy than that. Destruction of the state’s anticorps. The Prime Minister himself has a large team Legal Department and a major anti-corruption Department.
Central institutions have entire audit departments, paid precisely to prevent public money being stolen and to detect abuses. But none of them did. The government that the prime minister has destroyed all the antibodies of the state. Just like a malignant virus.”
AL in Sweden. 