Public investments hit bottom due to corruption cases, lowest level in 17 years in January-March

2026-04-24 07:41:00, Aktualitet CNA

Public investments hit bottom due to corruption cases, lowest level in 17 years

Capital expenditures from the state budget were only 5.2 billion lek, about 53 million euros in the first quarter of 2026. This was the lowest level for the same period in 17 years since 2009, as a series of files under investigation by SPAK such as PPP concessions, incinerators, roads (ARRSH) and ANA, etc. have revealed that in many cases the entire fund provided to invest in services or goods has been completely abused.

Official data shows that, while the need for infrastructure is increasing due to integration criteria, the state's ability to make capital investments has fallen to alarming levels, directly linked to major corruption scandals involving key Albanian institutions mandated to take care of the country's critical infrastructure.

The capital expenditure graph for the first quarters shows a golden era of investments around 2012-2013, where figures exceeded 65 billion lek, followed by a drastic decline that never recovered.

Economic experts estimate that this decline is not due to a lack of money in the state treasury, as on the contrary the investment fund has multiplied compared to 10 years ago, but to the problematic system. A practice has been created where the public investment fund is allocated in most of its part in December, while investigations have revealed that the funds are lost before they are converted into concrete assets for citizens.

Investigations have uncovered schemes of abuse with ARA tenders, where the cost per kilometer is artificially inflated and contracts are awarded to companies without capacity, causing projects to drag on for decades. While billions of euros come out of the state budget, they do not translate into tangible capital investments.

In the case of the incinerators, the money that was supposed to go towards the construction of waste infrastructure turned out to be diverted through shell companies, leaving behind facilities that do not function or that exist only on paper. The data on the role of public investments is even more alarming when analyzing the latest ANA file, where hundreds of millions of euros have been wasted on fictitious projects and companies, while E-albania systems are at best non-functional and sensitive data has been hacked more than once.

This year, the public investment fund is planned at 162.3 billion lek, about 1.7 billion euros, of which only 5.2 billion lek were spent during the first 3 months, or only 3.2 percent of the annual plan. The amount allocated in the first quarter was 47 percent lower than the plan for the period and 36 percent less than last year's actual./ Monitor Magazine