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Businessman Artur Shehu breaks his silence: I am a long-time land owner in Zvërnec, I don't know the investors at all

Albanian businessman Artur Shehu spoke on the Opinion show...

The Llogara Tunnel and the shadow of Ankara: with light from Erdogan, with darkness from the opposition

2025-11-09 14:17:00, Opinione Ardit Rada

The Llogara Tunnel and the shadow of Ankara: with light from Erdogan, with

In Albania, a file that is opened is enough to trigger a public trial. And usually, this trial is held long before justice speaks. The same story is now being repeated with the Minister of Infrastructure and Energy, Belinda Balluku, who has been put at the center of a political campaign that is treating the investigation as a punishment. The Albanian opposition was quickly involved in this wave of accusations, without waiting or seeing any official document. All political statements in recent days have been built on partial passages of the investigative file, which contain telephone communications between Balluku and her subordinates. But anyone who reads them carefully understands that these are not evidence of corruption. There is no talk of money, there are no talks about favors, there is no mention of gifts or honors. They are simply communications from a minister who demands results and holds his people accountable. And these messages show more about the way an ambitious leader functions than any corruption situation.

In an often slow administration, Balluku has been among the few known for insisting on seeing every project through to the end, and perhaps this has aroused jealousy within and outside the opposition, which mainly uses detached parts of investigative files as a weapon. It should be noted that at the center of this whole story is the Llogara tunnel, a work that has significantly changed the country's infrastructure and tourism in the south. Sali Berisha's opposition seeks to present it as a dubious affair, but the facts speak differently. If the tender procedures had been illegal, the simplest economic logic says that the disqualified companies would have complained. We would have seen complaints in the media, at the Public Procurement Commission or in the courts. But this did not happen. There was no official complaint, nor any public reaction from the participating companies.

The tunnel was built by the Turkish company ASL ?N?AAT, which is run by businessman Abdulkadir Kart, a well-known name in Turkey and one of the closest to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to the investigative file, Kart himself is mentioned as an investor personally recommended by Erdogan in Turkey's friendly countries - and Albania, without a doubt, is one of them. In this context, it is not surprising if there was an incentive from the Turkish side to complete the project on time, even with diplomatic insistence. There may have been "rushing" in the procedures, but this does not constitute corruption. It is part of the close relationship between the two governments, similar to the way many countries act when they have their own companies in partner markets. At the end of the day, what emerges from the SPAK file so far is a picture of efforts to deal with administrative bottlenecks and complete a major infrastructure project. There is no element that indicates illegal enrichment, favoritism or beneficial influence in the tender.

If we want to talk about real corruption with asphalt, we remember only one case in recent history: the National Road, built during the government of Sali Berisha, which according to audits caused a public damage of 230 million euros. There were documents, inflated invoices, ghost companies and a real financial damage to the Albanian state. This is precisely the real bill of corruption.

In the case of Belinda Balluku, we have none of these elements. We only have an ongoing investigation and a political wave that seeks to convict her prematurely.

It is healthy for SPAK to investigate everyone, without exception. But it is equally important that the investigation does not turn into a political weapon. Because moral condemnation before there is evidence is as dangerous as the lack of justice itself. And in fact, it seems that SPAK has turned this work of publishing investigative files into a 'sport', precisely to feed the politics of the day.