Oil refiner’s tax debts mount to €135 mln after a decade of failure in private hands

TIRANA, Jan. 7 – The suspension of work at Albania’s largest oil refiner, a routine process in the past decade since its failed 2008 privatization has left hundreds of oil workers jobless and a mountain of debts towards the country’s tax administration, unveiling the misadministration of one of the country’s key assets whose minority 15 percent stake is still owned by the Albanian government. Ionian Refining and Trading Company, IRTC, an offshore company owned by Albanian businessman Besnik Sulaj, reportedly with close ties to the ruling Socialists, suspended its work at the Fier and Ballsh refineries after managing the country’s…