TIRANA, Aug. 4 – A leading Norwegian company which planned to invest 22 million euros in Albania’s agriculture and had spent seven years over the project with Albanian authorities found itself surprisingly out of the race for about 1,150 hecatres of state-owned land in the southwestern region of Fier in early 2015, an investigation conducted by the Albanian Association of Journalists for Justice has found.
Frupor, a Norwegian company based in Portugal where it operates a vegetable and flower farm, had been interested in bringing its successful business experience in Albania where it was planning to invest 22 million euros and employ more than 1,300 people in vegetable production destined for export in a 1,000 hectare area in the Topoje commune of the region of Fier.
After eight years of preparations through its “Farm Albania” subsidiary, meetings with senior Albanian government officials, business plans and frequent changes of rules whether the land under possession by the Property Restitution and Compensation Agency should be granted under a symbolic 1 Euro concession or given for rent, a tender was finally held in January 2015 with a company led by a Bangladeshi citizen who had strangely benefited the Albanian citizenship emerging as the winner of the controversial tender for the rent of 1,146 hectares of agricultural land.
The investigation showed the bids opening was controversially postponed for 14:00 hrs of January 17, 2015 compared to the initial deadline of 10:00 hrs.
The investigation team found that Agri Product Europe company, led by Bangladeshi citizen Mohammad Karim, was controversially announced the project’s winner although not presenting any concrete investment project.
An official of the Agriculture Ministry confidentially told the investigative journalists that the project introduced by Agri Product Europe had not been signed by any of the board members, leaving room for a change in documents.
Agri Product Europe, led by Mohammed Karim who is reported to have obtained the Albanian citizenship in 2014 having entered Albania only two times in short stays, has debts of around 71 million lek (€500,000), raising doubts over its ability to invest in 1.200 hectares.
Farm Albania, the Albanian subsidiary of Frupor, has filed a lawsuit with the Administrative Court seeking the cancellation of the tender procedure where Agri Product Europe was announced a winner.
“We will take the case even to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. We want this to be an example. We wanted to build a model farm and if we didn’t turn this investment into a model for Albania and Albanians, we will make it a model in the Strasbourg court, I am determined on this,” says Bujar Zhuri, the Albanian representative of Farm Albania.
