Businessman Ilir Rrapaj was detained by the police in the south of the country late tonight and was accompanied by the police authorities. SPAK had made an announcement at the border that Rrapaj would be escorted to be questioned if he appeared at the entrance or exit of the border points, BalkanWeb confirmed.
According to the sources, Rrapaj is being accompanied to SPAK to give explanations for the investigation on the sterilization concession.
It is not yet known whether SPAK will arrest the businessman or not, while the investigations for this concession have been ongoing for 3 years by SPAK. Earlier SPAK received the testimony of the former Minister of Health Ilir Beqaj and the former deputy. Minister Klodian Rrjepaj. The sterilization concession is estimated to have had a value of 100 million euros and extended over a 10-year term.
The sterilization concession has been in the hands of SPAK prosecutors for three years. It is one of the four projects of the PPP budget support in health that originated in the first governing mandate of Prime Minister Edi Rama. The contract was signed in 2015 between the former Minister of Health, Ilir Beqja and the concessionaire company SaniService - whose shareholders are Investital LLC and the Italian companies "Servizi Italia", "Tecnosanimed" and "U.Jet Srl".
The first to be questioned by the prosecutors was the member of the Concession Commission, Saimir Kadiu, as well as the members of the Tender Commission. The procedure for sterilization of surgical sets is the first SPAK file and has been under investigation for 3 years.
The report was made by representatives of the Thurje Initiative, who criminally denounced the officials involved in granting the sterilization process with a concession. They have requested the investigation of the officials, starting with the former Minister of Health, Ilir Beqja, who according to them have abused the state budget.
Born in 1972, Rrapaj immigrated to Italy in the 90s and settled in the Umbria region. On April 17, 2000, he registered the company Ali Pashë Tepelena SAS in Perugia, a company in the "craft" category with only one employee and a capital of 3 million lire, which later converted to 1549, 38 euros. Ilir Rrapaj owned 50% of the company's shares and 50% is controlled by his relative Mitat Rrapaj, who in 2007 donated them to the Italian citizen Elisa Bulagna.
For more than a decade, Ilir Rrapaj ran a small construction company with only one employee, registered in a quiet residential area in the city of Perugia in the Umbria region of Italy, which he founded together with two relatives of in 2000 with a small capital of 1500 euros.
However, after the victory of the Socialist Party in the elections of June 2013, the immigrant originating from the village of Rexhepaj in Vlorë returned to Albania and established contact with the head of the Albanian health, Ilir Beqaj, with whom he had frequent meetings in which they also participated. Italian businessmen, interested in the market of medical services.
Two years after returning to his homeland, through a company registered in Kosovo, Rrapaj was declared the main winner of a concession contract of 100 million dollars in a contested tender.
The 10-year concession procedure worth ALL 9.6 billion was opened on February 13, 2015, with a decision of Minister Ilir Beqaj.