TIRANA, Sept. 19 – The municipality of Tirana has unveiled plans to award a concession contract for the construction of an interurban public transport terminal linking the capital to Durres and southern Albanian cities. In a pre-qualification call published by the Public Procurement Agency, the municipality of Tirana says it plans to offer a 85,000 m2 construction site for a concession term of 15 to 35 years in return for investment of at least Euro 15.5 million.
“The Municipality of Tirana will offer an 85,000 square meters land plot situated along the main corridor leading north-westerly out of the city toward Durres to be contracted out on a long-term basis (+20 years) to a future concessionaire to build, operate and maintain the terminal for the benefit of operators and passengers. In exchange, all bus docking fees, retail rental revenues, and parking fees, will be collected by the concessionaire to amortize its initial capital costs, operational costs, and cover debt service,” says the call for the international tender scheduled for Nov. 7.
The current bus terminal at the former Tirana customs office facilities close to the “Shqiponja” (Eagle) roundabout, operational since last February is managed by the municipality of Tirana. While the new temporary facility has slightly eased traffic and disciplined inter-city transport, it has increased transport costs for thousands of commuters and travelers who now have to take city buses to reach the previous station at the” Zogu i Zi” roundabout, closer to Tirana city centre.
Tirana city public transport users have been facing a 33 percent hike in bus fares starting February 2016 following pressure by local companies which had threatened to go on strike unless the municipality reviewed the ticket prices.
The current terminal handles about 500 buses and minibuses each day linking Tirana to 29 destinations, serving more than 10,000 passengers.
The municipality says the new terminal will further ease traffic in downtown Tirana and reduce pollution.
The Municipality of Tirana led by Socialist Party Mayor Erion Veliaj has also recently unveiled plans to privatize the capital’s state run water supply and sewerage company. The controversial plans have sparked concerns among experts over the goal of the operation and a possible failure just like the electricity distribution operator which was taken back under state control in 2013 after only three and a half years under private hands.
The municipality of Tirana, the country’s biggest local government unit (LGU), has a resident population of some 557,000 following the 2015 administrative reform that cut the number of LGUs to 61 from a previous 373 municipalities and communes.
Public-private partnerships have become a hot topic in Albanian politics after some risky concessions and warnings by international financial institutions that some 55 public-private partnerships the Albanian governments have signed during the past decade, have created commitments with a present value of about 7 percent of the GDP or €700 million in which the government will either pay the cost of the investment in installments or guarantee the revenue of concessionaires.
