Drinking water, 57% of water suppliers do not have a laboratory for analysis to monitor safety

2025-07-11 07:18:00, Aktualitet CNA

Out of 14 water supply and sewage companies, at least 8 of them, or 57%, do not have a laboratory to conduct drinking water analyses.

The lack of this link compromises the safety of the water that reaches citizens' homes. An audit by the Supreme State Audit Office at the National Water Supply and Sewerage Agency highlights this point, among other things.

"From the audit of laboratories for analyzing drinking water, out of 14 water supply companies, 6 companies (Berat, Elbasan, Korçë, Lushnje, Pogradec and Saranda) have laboratory facilities, while the other 8 companies do not have suitable facilities for building laboratories or in other words, there are no laboratories, which leads to the failure to conduct drinking water analyses and the failure to guarantee safety for citizens," the audit states.

Water supply and sewage companies have been involved in a reform process in the last two years where smaller regional enterprises have created larger enterprises and from 58 such enterprises have been reduced to 14, while Vora and Tirana still remain outside this reform.

The SAI auditors have also found other issues related to procurement procedures, where out of 3 "Works and Goods" procedures analyzed, at the National Water Supply and Sewerage Agency (AKUK) it was found that not all qualifying criteria were technically justified in accordance with the schedule, volume, nature of the work or budget items.

Likewise, deficiencies were found in the requirements for technical managers, licenses, deficiencies in the definition of specialists and technical specifications.

In the audit of 6 other procurement procedures "Works and Goods", the legal and sub-legal acts of the Public Procurement Law were not implemented in the evaluation of bids by the Bid Evaluation Commission, qualifying winning economic operators for failure to meet the general and specific criteria of the DST.

Another problem is that of arrears which, despite court decisions, have remained unexecuted, thus increasing the final bill as a result of interest on arrears.

Specifically, the auditors assess that the expropriation process for the project "Improvement of the Sewerage System of Greater Tirana" has remained almost at the same level of progress and without visible progress.

"The estimated values ??of the financial effects stemming from final court decisions for execution have not been recognized in accounting as liabilities to be repaid according to the principle of established rights and obligations, but have been recognized at the moment of liquidation, with a financial effect on the state budget by AKUK, for 2021-2024/06, for the value of 71.6 million lek, and the value of 159.9 million lek has not yet been repaid, which constitutes an increased risk with a negative financial effect on the state budget because, by not being planned to be repaid, it also carries late payment interest that may be required by creditor entities.

"In addition to the amount determined above in the amount of 159.9 million lek for damages to the winners, AKUK has another amount expected with second-instance decisions for the liquidation of the expropriated in the amount of 56.8 million lek," the audit states./ Monitor Magazine