With the incinerator, the expenses of the Tirana Municipality's budget for the environment were doubled/ 27 million euros in 2024

2023-12-19 07:11:00, Ekonomi CNA

With the incinerator, the expenses of the Tirana Municipality's budget for

The Municipality of Tirana's waste management costs in 2024 are more than double compared to 2017, before the incinerator project started, according to official data from the 2024-2026 mid-term budget of the Municipality of Tirana for the period 2021-2024 and 2017 by the State Chartered Control (KLSH).

Next year, 2.9 billion ALL, or more than 27 million euros, will be financed for the Urban waste management program. This amount is 47% higher than in 2020 and 124% more than in 2017 when the efforts to build the incinerator in Tirana had not yet started.

Data from an official report of the High State Control show that the Municipality of Tirana spent 1.3 billion ALL on waste management in 2017, as the cost of this service began to increase after 2018, when funding for the incinerator began. As the cost of the service has increased, the capital has not yet separated the waste at the source, while the incinerator has not yet been built.

According to the Municipality's budget, the waste management program for 2024-2026 includes salaries for the city's cleaning sector, waste collection, transportation and storage.

Collection and transportation of waste from urban and rural areas, solid waste collected and transported from urban and rural areas to landfills in a year. This includes expenses against operators who provide the service of collection and transportation of waste once a day, such as the purchase, maintenance and disinfection of waste containers; maintenance or renewal of tools and equipment, etc.

This program also includes the cleaning of streets and parks. Waste disposal and treatment, solid waste from urban and rural areas deposited and treated in the landfill against the disposal fee.

With the incinerator, the expenses of the Tirana Municipality's budget for

Source: Municipality of Tirana, relation of the 2024 draft budget

This includes the cost of the fee associated with this service. This item also includes the promotion of environmental protection and the realization of various activities for awareness or direct impact on environmental protection.

A few days ago, the Special Prosecutor's Office against Corruption and Organized Crime issued a series of arrest warrants for City Hall officials, for abusing the funds for the construction of the Tirana incinerator, while earlier in August of this year a seizure measure was imposed on "Integrated Energy B.V. S.P.V., the company that owns the Tirana incinerator concession. Meanwhile, the concessionaire has benefited from the taxes of the Albanians, about 9.9 billion lek, about 95 million euros, according to the data from the balance sheets submitted by the National Business Center.

The data from the balance sheets show that Integrated realized 9.9 billion lek of revenue during the period 2017-2022, of which 24.7 billion lek (23.8 million euro were profits).

Revenues increased from ALL 1.2 billion in the first year of activity in 2018, to ALL 1.7 billion in 2019 and ALL 2.3 billion in 2020, to peak at ALL 2.6 billion in 2021, when the incinerator was added and the garbage of Durrës, according to the official data in the balance sheet. The balance of 2022 has not been published yet, but from the preliminary data from taxes, the income is about 2 billion ALL.

In line with the increase in income, profits have also increased significantly, culminating in the period 2020-2022, at around 700-800 million ALL per year. The profit rate for this period fluctuated between 31-35% (see the table: financial indicators of Tirana Incinerator).

The incinerator projects will be remembered for the high number of public officials who went to justice, but at the same time also as a precedent that, despite the criminal offenses they caused, were financed from the state budget with Albanian taxes, ignoring full of governing morality and state laws./ Monitor.al