Green light for tourist village operated by Club Med, a French company

TIRANA, Aug. 15 – Bujar Leskaj, minister of Tourism, Culture, Youth and Sports, said Tuesday that the french company Club Mediterranean & Riviera was free to come back and resume working on a new tourist village in the southwestern village of Nivice, Kakome. The news was announced, according to him, after a government authority had decided that the village residents have no rights on the land. The residents claimed that the government had to ask their permission first before giving the land to a foreign company.
Last year they blocked the start of the work and the French company had to abandon the plan. Some 32 hectares of land would be used to build a big tourist village that was considered the biggest investment in tourism in the country. Nivica farmers reacted immediately accusing Leskaj for suspected links to the Albanian part of the group, Riviera sh.p.k and adding that the Kakome land was not considered by the local authorities. They said they did not believe Leskaj was speaking on behalf of the government, reminding him that Prime Minister Sali Berisha had told them they were the legal owners of the land and any investor has to talk with them first.