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How the Tirana incinerator company supported the Ajola Xoxa project

2024-05-06 19:47:00, Denoncim Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei
How the Tirana incinerator company supported the Ajola Xoxa project
Ajola Xoxa and Erion Veliaj

On July 1, 2021, the contemporary art platform "Harabel" presented a sculpture by the Kosovar artist Sislej Xhafa, entitled Bleta ("Bee"), at the Sharra landfill, the municipal waste disposal site of the Municipality of Tirana. Xhafa's sculpture was supposed to be the first of a series of public artworks that would transform this "private property" into a "contemporary art sculpture park." Historically, the Sharra landfill is where on August 7, 2016, an excavator crushed 17-year-old Ardit Gjoklaj, who was illegally employed by a waste management plant at the landfill operated by 3R, a Beijing-based company owned by a SP functionary. .

 

How the Tirana incinerator company supported the Ajola Xoxa project
The work "Bee" in the Sharra landfill

 

The Mayor of Tirana Erion Veliaj had publicly promoted the waste management plant as an exemplary employment opportunity for the community, claiming that it respects all legal standards. But when the tragic circumstances surrounding Gjoklaj's death came to light, media coverage of the scandal was aggressively suppressed. The investigation of 3R and its owner was closed. When confronted with this story, "Harabel" commented on social networks that "Sislej chose to install his work in the Waste Treatment Area of ??Tirana, a very delicate place which he visited and chose himself without any prior suggestion from "Harabel".

"Harabel" is a non-profit foundation that "focuses on the promotion of contemporary art" founded in 2018 by artist Driant Zeneli and "cultural promoter" Ajola Xoxa, a lawyer specializing in energy law, who also happens to be the wife of Mayor Veliaj. Shortly after its founding, Harabel launched a series of high-profile public art projects, featuring internationally renowned artists such as Anri Sala (also on Harabel's board), Adrian Paci and Xhafa. With Tirana's contemporary art scene struggling in terms of both funding and space, and given that neither Zeneli, then an immigrant, nor Xoxa were firmly rooted in that scene, Harabel's meteoric rise was remarkable. .

On Harabel's current website, Xoxa lists herself as "co-founder" and "creative director." She is also the founder of NAAN Gallery and GurGur Gallery, where "Harabel" has organized exhibitions. Harabel's official address in Sky Tower, in the heart of the expensive Tirana Block area, is in the same building as Xoxa's legal practice, The Partners, and Harabel's former program director and current legal coordinator, Xhoi Skënderasi, also held a seat on the board of Xoxa's publishing company, "Encyclopedic Publications". In other words, "Harabel" is closely related to Xoxa's business interests. But how is this non-profit organization financed? And how does it access prime parcels of land for its public art projects?

 

How the Tirana incinerator company supported the Ajola Xoxa project
Data on the official website of Ajola Xoxa

 

A recently published paper provides one of the missing pieces of the puzzle. The contract stipulates that Xhafa will "donate" Harabel his work "Bee" and a company called "Integrated Energy BV SPV" will install and maintain the work on its property for at least five years on behalf of "Harabel". and the artist. While this document exhausts the question of how "Harabel" structures its public art projects, this particular legal structuring raises a number of other questions, the most obvious among them: Why Integrated Energy BV SPV, a private company created to " the management, administration and realization of works for the construction of the Tirana Waste Treatment Area", will provide the property and free support for the creation of a sculpture park on the outskirts of Tirana?

 

How the Tirana incinerator company supported the Ajola Xoxa project
The work "Bee" in the Sharra landfill

 

To be able to answer this question, we need to understand how Integrated Energy BV SPV took possession of the Sharra landfill. One of the best sources to do this is the file on former Deputy Prime Minister Arben Ahmetaj compiled by the Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) in July 2023. This file, 320 pages, provides a detailed overview of the relationship of Ahmetaj's business since 2008, especially with those persons who turn out to be in charge of the Sharra landfill. The amount of criminal activity documented in this file is staggering: bribery, corruption, intimidation of officials, forgery of documents, tax fraud... the list is overwhelming. What I give below is only the smallest, simplified part.

Our part of the story begins on January 28, 2016, when Mayor Veliaj wrote to the Ministry of Finance about "improving the management of urban waste in the city of Tirana", claiming that he had recently completed a feasibility study for the establishment of a concession for the management of waste in Tirana. The proposal finds its way to the desk of the Minister of Environment Lefter Koka, who responds positively to Mayor Veliaj for his plans. Minister Koka's answer was also forwarded to businessman Klodian Zoto: "Look at this and tell me if you agree."

At this point, Zoto and his business partner Mirel Mërtiri already control two other waste management concessions in Fier and Elbasan through a series of related companies all headquartered in the Sky Tower. Now, they aim for another concession, the biggest so far: the management of Tirana's waste at the Sharra landfill.

How the Tirana incinerator company supported the Ajola Xoxa project

After being informed about the initiative of Mayor Veliaj, the unregistered company Integrated Energy BV follows the example of the Elbasan incinerator and makes an unsolicited offer to the Ministry of Environment for the construction of a waste management plant near Tirana. On the basis of this offer, the government opens a public tender procedure, and on August 19, 2016, the company is registered as Integrated Energy BV in the Netherlands with 50,000 euros of capital and with Zoto as one of the directors. The rest of the board is filled with various lawyers specializing in the creation of shell companies, one of the main means through which the Dutch government facilitates international tax evasion.

How the Tirana incinerator company supported the Ajola Xoxa project
Mirel Mertiri and Klodian Zoto

Integrated Energy BV is actively involved in the tender drafting procedure in which they intend to participate and receives information about its competitors from the Ministry of the Environment. In a flawed procedure, the Council of Ministers then gives Integrated Energy BV an 8% bonus on the tender evaluation, effectively securing the concession for the company. On August 31, 2017, Integrated Energy BV SPV, registered the day before and 100% owned by the Dutch shell company Integrated Energy BV, is granted an exclusive 30-year concession of 130 million euros "for the construction of a landfill, incinerator, and the rehabilitation of the existing storage site in Tirana and the production of electricity" by Minister Koka. The convenience of this contract for the concessionaire is that he is paid per metric ton of urban waste, even if none of the promised construction work is undertaken. This flow of urban waste is actually guaranteed by the Municipality of Tirana, which undertakes to pay the difference in case the flow falls below a predetermined threshold.

In clear violation of the concession contract, construction of the incinerator never begins, and several Albanian journalists, including myself, begin to investigate Zoto and Mërtir's multiple concessions and the complicated relationships between their various companies. In 2020, the Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) starts an investigation into waste management concessions at the request of the opposition.

In March 2022, SPAK issues arrest warrants against former minister Koka, Zoto and others in their investigation of the Fier concession. In response, Geogenix BV (the new name of the Dutch shell company Integrated Energy BV) issues a press release claiming that they have severed all ties with companies managed by Zoto.

On September 25, 2023, the Special Court for Corruption and Organized Crime sentences Koka to 6 years and 8 months in prison for the Fier case. Blako gets 2 years and 8 months and Zoto 8 years. One month later, on October 5, 2023, Koka received an additional sentence of 5 years and 8 months in prison for the Elbasan case. Mertiri and Zoto both get 6 years and 8 months.

Meanwhile, SPAK's investigation into the Tirana concession continues. In August 2023, the Sharra landfill and all other properties of Integrated Energy BV SPV are confiscated and in December a new set of arrest warrants is issued.

How the Tirana incinerator company supported the Ajola Xoxa project
SPAK

When an investigative journalist makes public, based on Ahmetaj's file, that it was Mayor Veliaj who started the concession procedure, he attacks her, calling her a "paid killer". He publicly denies having any close connection with the concession, claiming that he simply "has the duty to bring the waste to the landfill".

Mayor Veliaj is summoned by SPAK to testify on the case on April 30, 2024, regarding his role in the initiation of the concession procedure and the involvement of his direct subordinates in the fraud and falsification of documents in the process of its drafting and approval.

Let's now return to Ajola Xoxa's presentation of Sislej Xhafa's work on the property of Integrated Energy BV SPV: Why would a waste management company be interested in sponsoring the curatorial vanity career of the mayor's wife?

As may have been made clear by the events surrounding the exploits of Zoto and Mürtir and the many SPAK cases showing them in corrupt relationships with a host of Socialist Party politicians and bureaucrats, both locally and nationally, every act is transactional. So, it would not be unreasonable to think that even their sponsorship of Harabel's artistic events has ulterior motives, just one of the episodes in a mutual exchange of favors between the municipality of Veliaj and businessmen.

So, perhaps, after presenting a factual narrative, we can conclude with a brief speculation: As evidenced by the Ahmetaj file, Integrated Energy BV SPV was granted the Sharra concession thanks to the initiative and support of Mayor Veliaj, whose municipality is also responsible for payments to Integrated Energy BV SPV for a period of 30 years. In return, the company made the small gesture of supporting the mayor's wife's fledgling curatorial career by sponsoring a sculpture park at the landfill it manages. In all this, the artist Sislej Xhafa, who had spontaneously chosen the place "without any prior suggestion", provided a facade of respect, while in practice he facilitated the washing away of a concession managed on a land washed in blood and at the expense of the citizens of Tirana, who are already facing a large increase in waste collection costs.

How the Tirana incinerator company supported the Ajola Xoxa project
Ajola Xoxa and Erion Veliaj

After all, the money that flowed through Xoxa's "non-profit foundation", Harabel and its gallery spaces is negligible within the wider landscape of Albanian expropriations, privatizations and concessions. But the principle that emerges from this is clearly the modus operandi of the government, which from its inception has actively appropriated some forms of cultural nature to serve its propaganda needs, distracting public attention from the work of its interior.

Integrated Energy BV SPV, Harabel and Sislej Xhafa were invited to respond to the allegations in this article, but declined./  The Albanian Mechanism





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