Tirana's incinerator also financially sinks Durrës

2024-08-22 21:43:00, Denoncim CNA

A popular proverb says that "salt is cheap in Durrës, but the rent eats it up on the road." Now the citizens of Durrës are trying this themselves. Of course not with salt, but with garbage.

The double affair of the Eco Park in Porto Romano and the Sarra Incinerator has created a bankruptcy situation in the Municipality of Durrës. Now waste management is consuming almost a third of the municipality's budget, a rate that is three times higher than the average of other municipalities in the country.

The figures were made public by the High State Control. According to KLSH, last year the actual budget of the Municipality of Durrës was 39.4 million euros in total. But 9.6 million euros of this went to finance only waste management. In 2022, the figures were even more dramatic, as waste management received 29.4 percent of the total budget. This is one of the highest rates in all European cities and the reason is the Tirana incinerator.

In 2021, the Albanian government made a decision to close the Porto Romano landfill, in which the waste of Durres was deposited, forcing the coastal city of Central Albania to deposit the waste in the Sharra landfill. As soon as the municipality of Durrës started depositing the waste in Sharre, the costs of this service immediately tripled.

"Thus, out of the 370 million ALL that it spent in 2020 for waste management, in 2022 the Municipality of Durrës spent 964 million ALL," concludes KLSH.

The dramatic increase in costs has come about due to two items. First, the fee of 29 euros per ton that the municipality of Durrës pays to the concessionaire of the incinerator for the waste deposit in Sharre and secondly because of their transport from Durrës to Tirana.

"In 2020, the Municipality of Durrës has spent only 17 million ALL for the transport of urban waste, as it was sent to Porto Romano. But in 2022, it spent 151.2 million ALL to transport the waste to Sharre. So 9 times more," continue the KLSH auditors.

The data show that of the 9.6 million euros per year that the Municipality of Durrës pays for waste management, 4.5 million euros are a direct result of the government's decision to force it to deposit waste in Sharre. So, not because of the increase in the amount of waste generated by Durrës, nor because of the improvement of this service, but simply and only because of the incinerator.

The decision to force Durrës to deposit the garbage in Sharre has been accompanied by great suspicions of corruption from the first moments. Now time is proving them right. In short, this was a decision that increased the business of the incinerator gang, opened the door to the Porto Romano affair and stole 4.5 million euros from the citizens of Durrës every year./ Kapital.al