Mafia battle for public loot/ Durres Municipality rejects for the third time the KPP for the 1.7 million euro tender of Rijl

2025-05-20 18:34:00, Denoncim CNA

Mafia battle for public loot/ Durres Municipality rejects for the third time the

A tender worth 1.7 million euros for the reconstruction of an earthquake-damaged building in Durres has literally turned into a mafia battle with power clans to divide the spoils of power.

The situation has deteriorated to the point that Emiriana Sako, the mayor of Durrës, has twice refused to implement the decision of the Public Procurement Commission to re-evaluate the winner of the tender, which the Municipality of Durrës had awarded to her pet company, Rajli Ndertim.

After the Municipality of Durrës refused for the second time to re-evaluate the winner, the Public Procurement Commission was forced to issue another decision, prohibiting the Municipality for the third time from declaring the winner and concluding the contract with the company Rajli Ndertim.

This is an unprecedented case when the head of an institution is so openly exposed to favor a company, which is universally known to be connected to senior socialist officials in Durrës.

But what is happening with the tender for the reconstruction of Palace No. 167 "Viko" in neighborhood 13 of Durrës is more than that. All of this actually resembles the prologue of the fourth mandate of the socialists; the fierce struggle within the species to divide the public spoils.

The tender

The tender for the reconstruction of the palace was held by the Municipality of Durrës on April 17. 6 offers were submitted by different companies or combinations of companies. The Municipality of Durrës disqualified the 5 offers, qualifying only its preferred company, Rajli Ndërtim.

But immediately after the Municipality's decision to disqualify all bids, except for that of Rajli, a consortium of companies consisting of Lis Konstruksion and Murati complained to the Public Procurement Commission.

On April 28, the PPC reviewed the complaint of the two companies and ordered the Municipality of Durrës to re-evaluate the procurement procedure and disqualify the companies in question.

Two days later, the Municipality responded to the Procurement Commission, informing it that it had reassessed the procedure in accordance with the PPC decision. But this was not true, which forced the Public Procurement Commission to intervene on May 2 with another decision, asking Sako to implement the first PPC decision.

Mafia battle for public loot/ Durres Municipality rejects for the third time the

Second rejection of the CPC

On May 8, the Municipality of Durres sent a second letter to the Public Procurement Commission (KPP) for a re-evaluation of the tender, again leaving Rajlin as the winner. But the Municipality of Durres did not implement the KPP's decision for the second time.

"The PPC finds that the contracting authority has re-evaluated the procedure in the electronic procurement system and has re-evaluated the merger of the economic operators "Lis Konstruksion" Shpk & "Murati" Shpk, by not implementing the findings referred to the PPC decision No. 571/2025, dated 28.04.2025," the PPC decision states.

According to the CPC, in the second re-evaluation procedure, the Municipality of Durrës illegally added two more reasons for the disqualification of the opponents of the Rajli company, who had appealed the tender, the merger of the companies "Lis Konstruksion" Shpk & "Murati" Shpk.

Due to this situation, the PPC has decided to suspend the tender for the third time, prohibiting the Municipality of Durrës from continuing with the procedure without first implementing the PPC's first decision.

Mafia battle for public loot/ Durres Municipality rejects for the third time the

Pet company

Rajli is a company that exists solely to channel reconstruction money from public coffers into private accounts. According to official data from Open Data Albania, in the last five years this company has benefited from a total of 11.3 million euros in payments from public funds. Of these, 11 million euros came from the Municipality of Durrës alone.

Mafia battle for public loot/ Durres Municipality rejects for the third time the

In short, Rajli is the pet company of the Municipality of Durrës and exists only to receive money from this municipality. In the city of Durrës, it is rumored that Rajli Ndertim is a company that has high-ranking officials of the Socialist Party of Durrës as its actual owners. Official figures and Emiriana Sako's openly illegal exposure of Rajli reinforce this version quite a bit.

But in the face of all these facts, nothing happens./kapital.al