In a landscape where transparency and fair competition are often empty words, the Albanian Development Fund (ADF) seems to have found a magic formula to channel millions of euros in the right direction, towards the company “Fusha”, owned by businessman Shkëlqim Fusha.
This story is not just an isolated coincidence, but strong evidence of a stable and privileged relationship between the two parties.
In the last case, where a tender of 8.8 million euros ended up in the hands of “Fushë”, for the regulation, aesthetic improvement and development of commercial and tourist areas along the coast of Durrës.
The project, which will be managed in cooperation with central institutions and the Municipality of Durrës, will last 18 months and will be implemented by the company “Fusha”.
In this tender, 8 companies participated, but the scheme developed as expected. Instead of choosing the most favorable offer, the ADF disqualified five companies from the competition and declared the usual winner, “Fusha”, with a bid of over 6.5 BILLION ALL. This decision is even more suspicious when it is understood that all five disqualified companies had offered lower prices than the winner.
The ADF’s official reason for disqualifying all of these companies was the lack of “successful experience in similar work,” a bureaucratic excuse that tends to appear whenever a favored client is at stake. With a drop of the pen, millions of lek were thrown into the trash, only for the money to go to the “Fusha” company.
The biggest irony in this story is that, while the “Fusha” company receives another 6.5 BILLION lek from the state, its owner, Shkëlqim Fusha, has been officially named a defendant by SPAK. He is accused of “active corruption of high-ranking state officials” in connection with the file of the mayor of Tirana, Erion Veliaj. Furthermore, he has been ordered to appear in court, while investigations are uncovering secret financial transactions and the camouflage of benefits through NGOs linked to the mayor’s wife.
In light of these facts, the misuse of public funds in the ADF no longer seems like a mistake, but like a deliberate and unstoppable practice. The SPAK investigations and the security measure for Shkëlqim Fusha do not seem like an obstacle for Dritan Agolli and his commission, who continue to fill a favorite company with money bags, without considering the consequences for the pockets of citizens./ JOQ