"Deputy Minister of Education, 64 million ALL tender from the Ministry of Defense"/ DP: To resign

2023-09-30 10:42:00, Denoncim CNA

"Deputy Minister of Education, 64 million ALL tender from the Ministry of

The Democratic Party denounced this Saturday that the Ministry of Defense has awarded a tender to the company of the Deputy Minister of Education, Albana Toles.

Through the spokeswoman for Anti-Corruption, Genta Vangjeli, DP raised the charges that the tender with a fund of 64.3 million ALL was awarded in a non-competitive process.

Vangjeli said that before assuming the position of deputy minister, Tole should either have been expelled from the commercial society or refused the state job.

As a result of this, the DP demanded the resignation of Albana Tole from public office and to return the value of 555,306,360 million old lek, benefited from the company where she is an active part as a shareholder.

Full denunciation:

In bulletin no. 60, July 3, 2023, the Ministry of Defense announces the winner of the tender with the object "Purchase of materials for genius", with a fund of 66.6 million lek, the union of operators, which includes the company "Tirana Due shpk.

For this procedure, the fact of presenting only 1 offer stands out, creating reasonable doubts that the qualifying criteria and technical specifications in the tender documents are drawn up in such a way as to predetermine the declared winner.

The Ministry of Defense with its actions creates conditions to suspect that competition is artificially narrowed in violation of at least Article 2 and 3 of Law No. 162/2020 on public procurement, which provides:

c) promoting the participation of economic operators in public procurement procedures;
ç) promotion of competition between economic operators;

The Ministry of Defense for this procedure announced the winner of the sole bidder worth 64.3 million lek or almost 97% of the limit fund.

We inform the public that in active possession of the shares of this company, the owner with 15% is the Deputy Minister of Education Albana Tole in this position from November 2021.

Was the Contracting Authority that announced the winner for the above procurement aware of this fact?

From the transactions of the Treasury, it results that during the year 2022 and 2023 Tirana Due shpk, where the deputy minister is also an active owner, has benefited 555,306,360 million old lek, all from the Ministry of Defense (Military Department No. 4300 Tirana).

Article 27 points B and C of Law No. 9367 ON THE PREVENTION OF CONFLICT OF INTERESTS IN THE EXERCISE OF PUBLIC FUNCTIONS states:

The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister and the Deputy Minister:
b) cannot exercise private activity that generates income in the form of a natural commercial person,
a partnership of natural commercial persons of any form
c) cannot actively own shares or parts of the capital of a commercial company, regardless of its field of activity.
How then can the owner of the commercial company Tirana Due shpk exercise a state duty?

Ms. Before assuming the position of deputy minister, Tole should either have been expelled from the commercial company or refused the state job.

What can the government ask from others in terms of standards, when high officials are the first to not implement the legal provisions, but benefit as much and as much as they can from the influence of the public function they exercise.

Deputy the Ministry of Education should immediately resign from public office and return the value of 555,306,360 million old lek, benefited from the company in which it is an active part as a shareholder.
The formula do as we say, but don't do as we do, is a slogan of thieves not citizens./ CNA