ERE’s director resigns

TIRANA, March 1 – Bujar Nepravishta, the director of the Energy Regulatory Entity, announced on Tuesday his irrevocable resignation as the head of the independent decision-making body on electricity prices citing personal family reasons. Speaking at a press conference, Nepravishta dismissed allegations he had been asked to resign because of job-related reasons.
Nepravishta, who had been ERE’s head since 2005 when the ruling Democratic Party came to power, said he had submitted his irrevocable resignation to the Speaker of Parliament on Feb. 20, 2011, but had received no answer yet.
The ERE head can be appointed and dismissed only by Parliament.
Nepravishta also dismissed speculations that his resignation was a result of ERE’s decision to keep electricity prices unchanged for 2011. “The reason ERE decided not to increase electricity prices last December was because of the 10 percent additional revenue from exports by KESH Power Corporation,” said Nepravishta, without giving details of his family reasons.
ERE is already working on a new draft contract which will oblige electricity distribution operator run Czech Republic’s CEZ to take responsibility for power failures. The contract which is in its final phase of discussion with interest groups came after continuous complaints mostly by business but also household consumers over the poor quality of electricity offered by the electricity distribution operator, privatized by Czech Republic’s CEZ since March 2009. Last December, Albania’s Energy Regulatory Agency (ERE) decided to keep electricity prices for 2011 unchanged, turning down requests by the three local operators which would increase power prices by an average of 12 percent for 2011.
ERE’s board of commissioners decided to continue applying the two-tier price level, under which Albanian households will pay 7.7 lek/kWh for a consumption of up to 300 kWh a month and 13.5 lek for each kWh they consume above the 300 kWh threshold.