The collapse of Lot 3, the most controversial segment of the Qukës-Qafë Pllocë road, just a month after its inauguration, highlights a ruthless history of looting of public money, at the center of which stands a company from Saudi Arabia and its Albanian mastermind. The latter is the company 2 T, owned by the brother of the newly elected mayor of Tepelena, Gramos Sako.
Rawafed Al Torok and 2T jointly spent about $75 million to build the 9.5 kilometer segment of Lot 3. This is a saga of delays and relentless cost increases, which led to the result of the road's collapse.
2T owner Artan Sako, who is in the SPAK network for several investigations, is said to have moved to London for some time. It is not known whether this departure is related to the SPAK investigations or is simply a routine relocation for personal matters.
Artan Sako, owner of 2T
But what is certain is that Albanian citizens, after paying $75 million for 9 kilometers of road, are now suffering the cost of rampant corruption by the Albanian Road Authority gang and companies close to the government.
Saga
In 2014, the Parliament approved a loan agreement between the Republic of Albania and the Saudi Fund for Development for the Financing of the Construction Project of the Tirana – Elbasan – Qukës – Qafë e Plloçës road.
The Qukës-Qafë Pllocë road was tendered in three lots. Lot 3, which included a total length of 9.5 kilometers, was initially estimated to cost $25 million. But the money for this lot ran out quickly and three years later, the Albanian Road Authority requested a doubling of the funding.
"With letter no. 120, dated 22.01.2017, the Director of the Project Management Unit responded to the Coordinator of Foreign Projects with the financial table, informing him that the amount allocated by the Saudi Fund for Development amounts to 25 million USD and the value requested for the completion of the project is 49.3 million USD, also confirmed by the letter with ref. no. A2014-02/2017-75 of the Consultant," revealed a report by the SAI.
According to the ARRSH and the Project Management Unit, this difference was due to the project not having full funding. Here begins a story of chaos of figures, which changed every week.
Initially, the Ministry of Finance and Economy, with letter no. 23447/3 prot., dated 17.06.2020, requested a loan from the Saudi Fund for Development in the amount of 49 million USD to complete the financing of Lot 2 on the road, Qukës Qafë Pllocë. But just a week later, it changed its mind and requested only half.
With letter no. 23447/3 prot., dated 25.06.2020, the MFE requested a loan from the Saudi Fund for Development, but this time in the amount of 25 million USD for the completion of Lot III.
But 6 months later, the cost changed again and returned to the initial version. With letter no. 17876/5 prot., dated 18.12.2020, MFE requests another 24 million from the Saudi Fund for Development for the full financing of the Project (Lot III).
With the approval in parliament of this additional funding of 49 million USD, the cost for Lot 3 practically increased by 48 percent compared to the basic contract by 48%, an extremely high value compared to the initial agreement from 50 million USD to 74 million USD for Lot 3 alone.
The $25 million increase compared to the initial cost was requested precisely with the motivation of stabilizing the road slopes. Ironically, those slopes, which collapsed just a month after the road was inaugurated.
The HSE warned of the collapse
What happened today with the massive collapse of the road is not a bolt from the blue. The collapse of the road in lot 3 was warned a few months ago by the Supreme State Audit Office. In an audit report, the Supreme State Audit Office concluded that the project implementation for lot 3 resulted in significant deficiencies.
"The road body according to the original project is given the same everywhere, not counting the necessary road expansions, intersections, parking lots, drainage systems and drainages, as well as the reinforcement of the road body. The road layer package is designed uniformly, regardless of the geological-geotechnical formations, when the road is being excavated or filled," the KLSH report stated.
According to the report, the road drawings did not comply with the instructions of the geotechnical report, regarding the category of slope excavations, and in the meantime, the construction of gabion walls as a protective measure to prevent landslides was not foreseen.
"From the field verification, it resulted that the majority of the rock material that comes out of the excavations of the slopes is unusable as it is fragmented and crumbles in the presence of atmospheric agents. This phenomenon will also create serious problems at the height of the slopes, as their landslide phenomena will be created, especially due to the fact that no landslide protection phenomenon has been foreseen for these slopes," the KLSH report warned.
Editorial
