Albania seeks $45 Mln World Bank loan to build enbankments, dikes

TIRANA, Aug. 24 – Albania would ask the World Bank to give a $45 million loan to improve its existing embankment and dike systems and build new ones, according the Agriculture Ministry. “The ministry has asked the World Bank to extend credits for two projects. One is for improvement of embankment systems and the other is for dike construction. The first needs $30 million and the second one – $15 million,” said ministry spokesman Rexhep Shehu, adding that the World Bank had already approved in principle both projects. The bank had also authorised the ministry to use for urgent construction works part of an existing loan of $15 million earmarked for irrigation systems repairs, he said. The country, where heavy rainfalls and floods regularly damage farmland, roads, water supply and electricity networks and many houses each year, has 640 dikes, most of which need urgent maintenance. “Nothing has been done for almost 20 years. If one dike bursts out, the outcome will be catastrophic,” Shehu said. He said the situation was almost the same with the embankments. “The problem is even bigger, because the lack of embankments can endanger populated areas.” Since 1991, the World Bank’s commitments to Albania total $820 million in IDA loans, $125 million in loans of the bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, and $8.6 million in guarantees of its Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). In January, the bank approved its current four-year Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) for the impoverished southeastern European country under which it will lend up to $196 million.