TIRANA, Jan. 13 – Albania’s Prosecutor-General Ina Rama is continuing the investigation of alleged irregularities in the Rreshen-Kalimash highway, which remains a public controversy as it is considered the country’s largest public works project in decades.
The prosecutor’s office has made a request to the government of Prime Minister Sali Berisha to obtain copies of the transcripts of a cabinet meeting when the tender was awarded.
Rumors have persisted that during that meeting there was a heated dispute between ministers over the legality of the tender in question.
The road will link Albania’s main Adriatic port of Durres with Kosovo, and is projected to cost 518 million euro.
Former Prosecutor-General Theodhori Sollaku began an investigation last year into alleged irregularities surrounding the awarding of the tender, which was won by the U.S.-Turkish consortium Bechtel-Enka.
The investigation led to a request by Sollaku that parliament lift the immunity of Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha who was, at the time of the tender, Minister of Transport.
Basha’s immunity was lifted by parliament at the end of December.
A few weeks earlier, President Bamir Topi had dismissed Sollaku, following a call for his sacking by a parliamentary commission, and nominated Rama, a former Serious Crimes Court Judge, as his replacement.
Although Basha contested the investigation as a politically-motivated attack by Sollaku, since she took over, Rama has continued to push ahead with the probe.
However, the opposition Socialist Party has declared that the government has become an obstacle to a normal and impartial investigation.
The Socialists have turned down claims by the government that they are opposed to the building of such a highway, saying they only want to clarify how the public money has been spent.
They have accused Basha of committing a crime by allegedly earning money personally.
But Berisha, who was visiting the construction work Sunday, rejected such allegations only saying that the Albanian people were interested, at the moment, in the great work being done at the highway’s tunnels.
The premier also reassured that the work would be completed on time, in June 2009, just ahead of the general elections next year.
