Problematic relationship of business to customs office increases court cases

TIRANA, March. 22 – The number of court cases between the customs authorities and business companies has doubled in 2006 in comparison to one year earlier. The relationship between the two seems to be living in a problematic hostile atmosphere despite the measures introduced to facilitate customs procedures. In its annual performance report the General Directory of the Customs has decided to focus on measures to improve this problematic relationship reflected from the high number of pending court cases. The majority of the cases in which the businesses have decided to seek judicial support has been related to the discriminatory reference prices applied to imports. Some of the cases have been politicized and covered extensively on the televised media such as the “Neranxi” case when the Sp deputy and manager of the company claimed to have been wrongly treated due to his opposition stances. Another recent case is the block on natural gas amounts of the company “Vjosa” which has declared bankruptcy. In the case that the court decides in favor of the business the customs debt increases. For 2006 the accumulated debt to the businesses was 1.7 billion leks, while the reverse figure for the business was 0.9 billion leks. Larger businesses have a tendency to be the biggest debtors to the state in this respect.