Brunilda Mersini opens the door to millions for Safet Gjici after prison, 269 million lek from the Municipality of Vlora for the company linked to the former mayor
The Mayor of Vlora, Brunilda Mersini, seems to have opened the door to a contract worth 269 million lek to the company linked to the former mayor of Kukës, Safet Gjici, just a short time after he left the prison cell. The tender has brought back the name of Gjici, convicted of corruption, through the company “Kevin Konstruksion”, which continues to benefit from public funds under the administration of his brother.
The former mayor of Kukes, Safet Gjici, who was sentenced to three years in prison for passive corruption and abuse of office, offers another case that raises questions about how businesses linked to convicted officials continue to win public tenders. After being banned from exercising public functions for five years by the judiciary, he was released on May 18, 2025, for health reasons.
Shortly after, his name returned to the spotlight through the company “Kevin Konstruksion”, founded by him and currently managed by his brother, Lavdrim Gjici. The Municipality of Vlora, under the leadership of Brunilda Mersini, has announced the winner of the joint venture of operators APIS CONSTRUCTION & KEVIN KONSTRUKSION for the tender with the object “Construction of the Civil Emergency Operations Center”. With a limit fund of 288,559,870 lek (excluding VAT), the contract was closed with a bid of 269,123,172 lek.
269 million lek tender in Vlora: Competitors disappear, the company linked to Gjici remains the only one in the race
Beyond the numbers, what is striking is the administrative choreography of the race. Of the three operators who entered the track, only one survived the documentary amnesia:
ARKONSTUDIO withdrew silently, not submitting either documentation or an economic offer.
RAFIN COMPANY stopped at the first bureaucratic hurdle, not submitting the required papers according to the standards.
In this scenario where competitors are distributed as if by remote control, the field remained clean and open. The conclusion? Another public contract that proves that beyond penalties and legal restrictions, the genetics of business success in Albania knows neither physical obstacles nor a lack of signals from the market.
The competition in question has been assessed by Open Data Albania with a clear “Red Flag”, with the classic motivation: disqualification of any competitor other than the winner and elimination of the lowest bid. A standard choreography where rivals simply fill in the Excel spreadsheet before disappearing from the scene. But the problem does not end with the burnt competition papers, because the mathematics of construction sites speaks a different language. The project requires 18 months of implementation time and about 50 heavy vehicles and equipment on the ground. In the reality of the financial statements:
Kevin Konstruksion has an average of only 63 employees in total.
For this contract, it has undertaken 89.2% of the works.
The volume undertaken requires a working capital of about 81 employees for this facility alone.
To these are added other contracts that the same company is currently implementing.
On the other side of this municipality, the partner in this consortium of operators, APIS CONSTRUCTION, also carries its own financial questions. Referring to the data, the company turned out not to meet the economic criteria for a tender of this size, since in 2023 it had recorded losses on the balance sheet.
However, this has not prevented it from positioning itself as part of the winning consortium, even with a quota of 3.6% of the contract. At the end of this account, the tender is concluded with a lack of effective competition, while the process of verifying technical and financial capacities leaves open doubts. Meanwhile, the company associated with the name of former mayor Safet Gjici marks another return to the table of public funds, securing a contract worth approximately 269 million lekë excluding VAT, reports “joq-albania.com”.