How the US ambassador, Ilir Beqaj, ignored him

2024-07-04 20:00:00, Politikë CNA

How the US ambassador, Ilir Beqaj, ignored him

Ilir Beqaj and Yuri Kim

Ilir Beqaj, the former Minister of Health, was put in handcuffs this Thursday by order of SPAK. The Special Prosecution accuses Beqaj of abusing the funds of the State Agency for Strategic Programming and Aid Coordination (SASPAC), when he was in charge of this institution during the last year.

The Special Prosecutor's Office says that Ilir Beqaj carried out fictitious procurement procedures at the head of this institution, organizing a fraud scheme for profit in connection with a restaurant in the center of Tirana, behind which Beqaj himself is hiding. Also, SPAK says that Ilir Beqaj has been hiding his wealth since 2020 and beyond.

Beqaj has often held important positions and has been promoted by the head of the government, Edi Rama, who earlier came to his defense saying that the fact that someone is under investigation does not indicate anything. While then he released it, as every socialist releases, saying that the responsibility is individual.

Over the years, Beqaj has been accused of abusing a number of positions he held, and often the promotion given to him by the socialists was not welcomed even by the international community.

We recall the case of November 24, 2021, when the former ambassador of the United States of America to Albania, Yuri Kim, after taking the floor, Ilir Beqaj , at that time the head of the Agency for the Management of Donor Funds, left the consultative meeting he was holding The Ministry of the Interior with the donors, the meeting which focused on the fight against crime, especially money laundering and cyber crimes for a safer Albania.

How the US ambassador, Ilir Beqaj, ignored him

Kim has closed the file and got up from the table, where to her left was the then Minister of the Interior, Bledi Çuçi and the former ambassador of the European Union, Luigi Soreca.

At that time it was said that Yuri Kim rose from the table as it was not foreseen in the agenda that he would hold the word Beqaj, while it was also seen as a demonstrative form of diplomacy for appointing Beqaj to an important post as head of the Donor Agency .

The agency in which Beqaj was headed at that time had a coordinating role, while in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance and the donor community, it was intended to coordinate all the foreign aid that the Albanian government would receive for development programs and projects.

This Thursday, SPAK has officially confirmed that Beqaj during the years 2022-2023 while he was in charge of another agency, SASPAC, instead of managing European funds, abused the millions of aid given by the European Union to our country. / CNA