Central bank heist continues to dominate public discourse as probe into the inside job theft of $7 million deepens.
TIRANA, Aug. 14 – In the face of an angry public reaction over a large theft at the central bank, Governor Adrian Fullani appears to have lost political support from the ruling Socialist Party, as several representatives called on the governor to resign.
The theft of the equivalent of $7 million from the Bank of Albania over four years, in what appears to be an inside job, continues to dominate the media and public discourse three weeks after its discovery.
Special prosecutors looking into the case say they have deepened their probe and are questioning ten people who have been arrested over the theft, but much of the public and media attention has been focused on calls for the governor and the Bank of Albania Supervisory Council members to resign.
While there is no indication they are directly involved in the theft, critics say they failed to perform their duties as watchdogs of the country’s most important financial institution.
There have also been small protests organized by civil society activists, who have also started a petition calling on parliament to break its annual vacation and hold an extraordinary session to sack the central bank governor.
Fullani also appears to have lost political support on the left. While receiving supporting statements from the Socialist-led ruling coalition in the early days of the scandal, in light of growing public anger, the Socialists appear to have changed position and are looking to make changes in the leadership of the central bank.
Erion Brace, a Socialist MP who heads the parliament’s Finance Committee, said that as a supervisory council member, chairman and head executive of the bank, Fullani has direct moral responsibility for the criminal actions that took place under his watch. Making a statement on his official social media page, Brace said Fullani should resign or be fired.
“The law clearly states that the council may sack the governor and council members when their actions seriously jeopardize the interests of the bank,” Brace said. “It has been clearly proven that the governor, both as a member and chairman of the Supervisory Council, has seriously jeopardized the interests of the bank.”
While losing support on the left, the main opposition center-right Democratic Party has said it does not support firing Fullani, calling it “political interference” in the work of an independent institution.
Edi Paloka, who heads the Democrats parliamentary group, said the opposition is not in favor of a proposed parliamentary investigative committee that could be formed in September to investigate the central bank theft.
“We do not support any legal initiative from the ruling majority on this,” Paloka said.
Spartak Braho, an MP of the Socialist Movement for Integration, a main ally of the governing Socialists, said that the country’s financial stability was put at stake and that time had come for the Supervisory Council members and Fullani to resign. SMI’s leader, Ilir Meta, had a week earlier made a statement in support of Fullani.
Fullani had not commented publicly on the calls to resign until he gave an interview Thursday to Mapo, an opposition-friendly newspaper. He said he had no intention of resigning and that it was his duty to stay on the post. Several other media outlets reported he had told bank officials that he aimed to weather out the scandal. He has four years left on his second seven-year mandate as central bank governor.
Ten people, eight of whom central bank staff, have been arrested in relation the theft of Albanian currency with an international value of nearly $7 million. Prosecutors say the cash was stolen over a period of four years, and one employee has confessed to stealing large amounts of cash to feed his gambling addiction, authorities have said.
The former BoA employee, Ardian Bitraj, handed himself over to police, and gave details about stealing large amounts of 5,000 lek banknotes, about $50 and Albania’s largest denomination, over a lengthy period while he worked at a secured transfer area of the bank’s treasury.
Sources from the prosecutors’ team probing the case have told the local media they have already found a lot of irregularities in the daily operations of the central bank. They have said they will question all the main bank staff and Supervisory Council members.
Prosecutors have also said they do not believe all the money was gambled away, as Bitraj said during his confession, and are looking into financial records of several people associated with him.
After the theft became public, Ermelinda Meksi, the sole BoA Supervisory Council member proposed by the Socialists, asked for Fullani’s resignation or sacking. The council is the only body that can sack the governor without direct action from parliament. It was put to a vote, in the council and soundly rejected, several media outlets reported. The bank officially denies that the vote took place, though Meksi has publicly come out to say that it did.
Fullani was seen as one of the most powerful men in Albania before the theft, and a rare public official with support from both sides of the political divide, however several MPs on the left have now come out publicly calling for his resignation.
Officially, the government itself has said it is waiting for the results of the probe by the prosecutor’s office before arriving to any conclusions.
However, civil society activists say they are not willing to wait and have launched protests, collecting signatures for a petition with the aim to get Fullani to step down or be fired. There have been protests in several Albanian cities, and thousands of people have already signed the petition, organizers told the media. They aim to give the petition to the country’s president and the parliament.
Much of the public anger was fueled by a media campaign that has portrayed the central bank governor as politically well-connected and opulent, digging into personal photos of him and his children showing off designer watches, sports cars and lavish parties. He is also accused by the media of buying off politicians by hiring their relatives to work for the bank, which has a reputation to pay well above the private market. Fullani himself is the highest-paid official in the Albanian state. His wife is also a supreme court judge.
The opposition Democrats have indicated they view the campaign as orchestrated by the ruling majority to bring in more government – friendly governance to the Bank of Albania.
“Instead of Fullani’s son champagne parties, they should look at how the prime minister can afford 5,000-euro suits when officially his salary has been about 800 euros a month for years,” said Paloka, the Democratic MP, referring to photos of that emerged in the media showing Fullani’s 20-year-old son living an opulent lifestyle.
