By Gajtis Bejleri
TIRANA, July 9 – At a Parliament meeting on Tuesday, the Minister of Economy, Transports and Energy, Genc Ruli, announced that the “ARMO” privatization contract would pass through the parliament by the end of July.
After passing the Council of Ministers approval, “ARMO” contract has now to be ratified by the Parliament. Ruli said that the buying consortium of “ARMO”, Swiss-American “Refinery Associates of Texas, Anika Enterprises and Mercuria Energy Group” are ready to take control of 85 percent of the shares agreed upon, and pay 125 million Euro fee as soon as the contract is accepted by the Parliament.
However, during Tuesday’s meeting, members of the opposition came up with statements claiming Albanian “Ta詠Oil” might be the real buyer behind the Swiss-American consortium. Ruli replied to these accusations, by mentioning that “Ta詠Oil” might have small stakes in the consortium, but not as many as to control the company.
Another claim the opposition came up with was the speculation that “ARMO” has not been respecting its contract with the Government to keep selling diesel after the privatization process started, granting the buying consortium big amounts of unsold diesel since before takeover. Ruli told the MPs that “ARMO” has not been going against its Governmental contract, and that it has been operating properly.
The Government started the reforms of cutting 600 employees from “ARMO” and 1100 more from the other state-owned company “Albpetrol”, right after the privatization process ended in May, but the Swiss-American consortium’s directors have declared that they will not cut any employees and they will raise the salaries by 30 percent. Also, according to the buyout contract, the consortium is supposed to invest 240 million Euros in “ARMO” for the next three years.
