TIRANA, Sept. 25 – New revelations involving a contract between Albania’s power distribution monopoly and a company with alleged political ties 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.
DIA is currently suing OSHEE for millions at a Vienna arbitration court for breaking a 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 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 the company’s political ties.
Former Economy Minister Dritan Prifti told a television talk show on Thursday that Ilir Meta, the leader of the Socialist Movement for Integration, had insisted that DIA and Ismailaj take over the collection of debts on behalf CEZ – a multi-million euro deal.
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. Meta denies any wrongdoing.
CEZ is owned by the Czech state, 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 the company out of the country 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.
The Democrats opposed the agreement saying the Albanian state had a good chance of winning the arbitration dispute and millions of euros were left on the table by the Albanian state by reaching an out-of-court agreement with CEZ.
The Democrats now say they will take the agreement to Albania’s Constitutional Court to see if they can void it.
