The Special Prosecution's file on abuses at the National Agency for the Information Society, although it performs a great public service by stopping the terrible financial hemorrhage of the digital swamp, presents only half the truth.
In the accusatory material presented by SPAK, there are two dark points, the clarification of which is vital to uncovering the full truth of the AKSHI affair. Both points relate to businessman Gerond Meçe.
Until early last year, Gerond Meçe was the man who dictated practically every AKSHI tender. His company, Advanced Business Solutions, was AKSHI's largest absolute contractor and the biggest beneficiary of secret information technology tenders, transforming itself into Albania's digital behemoth.
Over the past 6 years, the company has directly benefited from almost 50 million euros from IT tenders, of which over 15 million euros were secret tenders. In 2023, the turnover of the company Advanced Business Solutions reached around 18.6 million euros, while its real profit, including the profits shifted to another Meça company, Artificial Intelligence Business Solutions, was 7.7 million euros or over 41 percent of the turnover.
The entire source of this money was public contracts, which mostly came from the National Agency for Education and Training (NAES). And within them there are scandalous tenders such as the 16 million euro contract for the establishment of smart laboratories in several schools in the country. The project envisaged equipping 210 schools in the country with a laboratory, which had 17 laptops and internet connections.
But the laptops were sold 3 times domestically to fictitiously increase their price, from ABS to Albascan. This is one of the most infamous tenders of AKSHI in terms of the extent of the abuse.
Besides being the largest beneficiary of AKSHI funds, Meçe's power extended beyond simply winning tenders. Many IT businesses were clear that in order to compete in AKSHI tenders they had to first receive Meçe's blessing. In short, until the beginning of last year, Gerond Meçe was the Ermal Beqiri of the last two years.
But at the beginning of last year, everything changed suddenly. Gerond Meçe was blacklisted by the AKSHI and, from being the largest beneficiary of tenders, was excluded from every tender.
These are the two dark spots that SPAK must shed light on in the investigation into AKSHI. The first is where Gerond Meçe's absolute power came from until the end of 2023, and the second is what happened that the company was stripped of this power?
It has been suggested in public that everything is related to an environmental wiretap, where Meçe has spoken more than necessary, showing that his power came from his connections with the prime minister's family. But these always remain unproven rumors. Therefore, without the clarification of these two dark points, the truth of AKSHI will be simply half-truths. And half-truths are said to be the worst lies.
Editorial
