The Prime Minister announced that large companies will be hired to maintain major roads such as the Rreshen-Kalimash highway linking Albania to Kosovo
TIRANA, May 25 – Prime Minister Sali Berisha has reiterated the government’s intention to finalize the privatization process by the end of this year, and announced that large companies will be contracted to maintain then newly-constructed major highways. Speaking at Wednesday’s government meeting, Berisha described the privatization process as of vital importance for the country’s economic reform and the fight against corruption. “Albania will have as public property only big dams, schools, hospitals and public land; everything else will be completely under the possession and management of the private sector,” said Berisha, adding that this will make the Albanian economy much more competitive. According to him, Albania is the country with the smallest public sector in Europe– considering the fact that 84 percent of GDP is produced by the private sector. Urging the privatization of state-owned insurer INSIG, Berisha said the Ministry of Economy had contracted some of the best consulting companies, such as IFC and Unicredit, for the privatization process. The Prime Minister announced that big companies will be hired to maintain major roads such as the Rreshen-Kalimash highway linking Albania to Kosovo, admitting that the General Road Directorate lacks human and material capacities to manage and maintain them. “As soon as the Shkembi i Kavajes-Rrogozhine segment finishes, even the Tirane-Fier and Tirane-Durres motorways will be granted further maintenance,” said the Prime Minister. Earlier this year, the government stated that it had identified 1,280 public assets, including strategic enterprises, which it intends to privatize by the end of this year. Should the identified buildings and enterprises have a private owner, they will be given the opportunity to pre-purchase them. The privatization list includes: remaining state owned shares in strategic oil, and phone companies, small hydropower plants, military facilities and small and medium-sized enterprises; with the exclusion of large hydropower plants and dams, schools, hospitals and public buildings and offices which will remain under state ownership. The sale of the remaining important public assets such as oil producer Albpetrol, INSIG, and the remaining state-owned shares in Albtelecom, would bring another 100 to 150 million Euros this year, according to government projections in mid-2010. The opposition Socialist Party had previously warned the government to be careful with the privatization process, saying that it would launch a transparency process on every privatized asset as soon as it comes to power and annul all corrupt privatization.
