TIRANA, Oct. 1 – New revelations involving the botched privatization of Albania’s power distribution monopoly and corruption allegations in contracts the company had with third parties have led to calls for an international investigation.
New facts made public this week show CEZ Shperndarje, then privately owned by a Czech company and now state-owned and re-branded as OSHEE, paid more than 4 million euros to International Debt Advisory, a company owned by Kastriot Ismailaj, who is currently in jail on money laundering charges.
Ismailaj has been tied to Ilir Meta, the leader of the Socialist Movement for Integration, who is now facing calls to resign from his post as Speaker of Parliament to face an investigation.
Former Economy Minister Dritan Prifti told a television talk show last week that Meta had insisted the DIA and Ismailaj take over the collection of debts on behalf CEZ – a multi-million euro deal.
DIA is currently suing OSHEE for millions at a Vienna arbitration court for breaking the multi-million euro contract, and one of the witnesses in the case has made public facts that raise questions over DIA’s ties to political leaders in Albania and potential corruption at high levels involving the CEZ affair, a drawn out fight between Albania and the Czech state-owned company.
The witness in question, Elvis Mataj, a former DIA director, is currently under police protection, because his life has been threatened, as he is to testify against his former employer and on company’s political ties.
The contract between CEZ and DIA took place under the former coalition government of the Democratic Party, then led by Sali Berisha, and Meta’s SMI, which has since switched sides and is currently in the governing coalition of the Socialist Party.
Meta and Berisha have both called for an international investigation into the affair.
Meta said it should be preferably led by American prosecutors who would have no conflict of interest in the matter, which also involves the interests of the Czech Republic.
Meta also denies any wrongdoing in the matter.
– The CEZ affair, a complicated past –
CEZ, owned by the Czech state, had bought the Albanian power company in 2009, and Prague had effectively threatened to block Albania’s EU bid should the country not reach a satisfactory agreement with the Albanian state after the Berisha administration effectively kicked CEZ out of the country in 2012 for not meeting its investment promises.
Berisha lost the 2013 elections, and the Socialist Party’s Edi Rama took power. To divorce legally, the Albanian state and the Czech company, decided to split their claims in half under the Rama administration, avoiding a potentially costly and lengthy international arbitration court procedure in relation to the botched privatization of Albania’s power distribution company.
– Democrats seek investigation, new agreement –
The Democrats opposed the agreement saying the Albanian state had a good chance of winning the arbitration dispute.
Opposition Democrats have also asked that the buyback agreement with the CEZ should be nullified, and they want the the Constitutional Court to rule on the matter.
They claim that the country lost some 800 million euros from CEZ over the years at a time when it owed CEZ only 200 million euros. They say that under the current deal, each Albanian will pay 1,300 euros to the Czech company.
Prime Minister Rama has said the deal was done according to the best international standards and it now final. Prague has also greeted it as a success.
The main opposition Democratic Party has also submitted a draft law in parliament that would make it possible for foreign prosecutors – either from the United States or an EU country — to investigate the allegations of corruption.
However, Albanian laws and the constitution don’t allow for an independent foreign investigation on Albanian soil, just for foreign assistance of local investigators, according to legal experts.
The Democrats’ leader, Lulzim Basha, has directly accused Meta of personal involvement and profit in the transfer of 130 million euros as part of the affair.
– SP, SMI deny coalition instability –
Political analysts have debated whether the new revelations would end up destabilizing the ruling coalition between Meta’s SMI and the Socialist Party’s Edi Rama, the country’s prime minister who is currently out of Albania on an extended visit to the United States to take part at the UN General Assembly meeting.
High officials both in the SMI and the SP have repeatedly denied their ruling coalition has any divisions. The Socialists remained quiet on the matter for most of the week, with leftist lawmakers responding only to deny the opposition’s persistent allegations.
However, Rama made his position clear on Wednesday in an interview with the Voice of America, during his stay in New York, saying that everyone has the right to seek full transparency on the agreement of the Albanian government with CEZ, but adding the people making the accusations did not have the public interests at heart.
“Anyone has the right to a full investigation and to use all opportunities provided by Albanian laws to do this,” Rama said. “But the Albanian government, and the ruling majority do not have time to lose to deal with the unbridled fantasies and the effort of the the Democratic Party, and not just the DP, but also other segments of public life of the country that have no connection with the public interest, but only seek to divert us from our journey and our priorities.”
– SMI wants U.S. investigators
A close Meta ally and fellow SMI lawmaker, Spartak Braho, sent a letter to several key institutions, according to local media reports, in which he writes about a behind-the-scenes plan to attack Meta by attacking the family of the protected witness in the CEZ affair.
Braho’s letter, according to media reports, indicates a plot by Tom Doshi, an MP expelled from the Socialist Party and the SMI former minister, Prifti, to “destabilize” the country.
Meta has said he won’t dwell on the “mud-pits” of speculations and the accusations against him, but he has denied any wrongdoing and has also called for an international probe, underlining that he preferred U.S. prosecutors.
“I also call on all party leaders to ask especially for the United States to be engaged in the clarification of this issue and to create a special jurisdiction with American investigators,” Meta said.
Following Meta’s call, the U.S. Embassy in Tirana said the investigation has to be conducted by Albanian officials.
