Kosovo reroutes highway to Albania to cut costs

PRISHTINA, May 10 – The legality of a Kosovo Government decision to reroute a 700 million euro highway is being questioned by opposition members and civil society.
Prime Minister Hashim Thaci has announced that the new road, dubbed the Patriotic Highway because it will eventually connect Tirana and Pristina, will no longer pass through a mountainous section in southern Kosovo, BalkanInsight reports.
Instead, Thaci said the road will take a longer but less expensive route via the town of Malisheve, home to the former Transport Minister Fatmir Limaj, saving 350 million euro.
Thaci added that the detour will add just seven minutes to journey times.
A leading thinktank, Gap Institute, said the rerouting would take an extra seven minutes only if drivers were able to maintain an average speed of 130km an hour.
It also pointed out that the move contradicts an earlier Government decision, giving the assembly final says on the route.
According to the institute, the Government, in its meeting on April 27, has not requested that the assembly consider the decision.
The institute added that the savings suggested by the government remain unclear, as a 350 million euro saving would leave the total cost at 400 million euro, even though 225 million euro has been set aside this year, 265 million euro in 2012 and 269 million euro in 2013.
Ismet Beqiri, of the main opposition party Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, says that the decision is illegal. “The government is trying to present the LDK as if we are against the highway, while we oppose only the illegal procedures that are being carried by Hashim Thaci in this case,” he said.
Burim Ramadani, a senior figure in the opposition Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK, said that Thaci’s decision confirmed the government was willing to take decisions unlawfully. The Government nor the Ministry of Finance was available for comment and the criticism leveled against them.
Ela Ruci, construction firm Bechtel Enka’s spokesman, said that their work is progressing well. She said the section from the border, through Prizren to the town of Suhareka would be opened within the year.
“So far we have worked on ten bridges, some of them have already been completed,” she said. Work on the highway began in April 2010 and should take three years.