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The ghost plant that continues to "eat" money - €200 thousand tender to cover the €100 million pit for Tirana's wastewater

2026-06-30 23:50:53Fokus SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Photo montage - Vox News

Anyone who has passed or is passing by the Kombinat in Tirana will see on the side of the road several concrete structures, at a distance from each other, which have been there for a long time, awaiting the completion of the works. They are the “holes” left in the middle of the road, of a project that has cost more than 100 million euros, where it would be possible for the capital’s wastewater not to flow into the Lana and then into the Tirana River and Ishmi, before ending up in the Adriatic Sea, but to be treated in a plant located in Mëzes.

A necessary initiative, given the density and immense growth of construction in Tirana, with towers and palaces being erected every month, where their sewage flows into the middle of the capital, becoming an epidemic risk, but which no government has given final treatment to. As in any public work, one of the most vital for the population, the Water Treatment Plant has also been left half-completed, where the company that carried out the work claims that it has not been paid, while the Albanian government says that "that's how much the fund was".

Of course, as in other construction sites, the state must act and if the project has been abandoned halfway by the executive, then justice must have its say, whether the state officials who signed it are responsible for this abuse or whether the responsibility falls on the private firm. The fact is that sewage continues to be dumped into Lana, passing through the middle of the city with a heavy smell and then ending up in the Adriatic Sea, while the plant in question has rusted, despite having cost a "cartload of money", while state institutions continue to cover the holes, always at the expense of taxpayers.

The ghost plant that continues to "eat" money - €200 thousand
Facsimile: Tender opened by the National Water Supply and Sewerage Agency for the maintenance of the Greater Tirana construction site

During the design, the Plant was called "Great Tirana", as it aimed to process over 90% of Tirana's wastewater, especially urban wastewater, while the institution responsible for the papers is the National Water Supply and Sewerage Agency. An institution subordinate to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy, which over the years has changed several directors, some under investigation, others deputies or in various state positions.

The same institution, according to documents researched by Vox News, constantly makes tenders for the maintenance of that construction site, thus once again putting its hand in the pocket of poor Albanians, who pay a hefty bill every year, despite the fact that it has never served them. AKUK has recently opened the tender with the object of procurement "maintenance of the Greater Tirana construction site", with a limit fund of 19,198,300 lek, or at today's exchange rate around 200 thousand euros.

In the letters of this Agency it is written that it is about “maintenance services”, “repair services”, “maintenance and other services related to roads and other equipment”. A tender for this object is held year after year, inflating the cost year after year, while passers-by or those who go to M?zes will only see an unsealed construction site and some ruins, when in fact the underground pipeline seems to pass from the “Palace of Arrows”, towards the Kavaj?s street, to end at the Combine and later in M?zes, in an underground water network, of those that exist in every metropolis or large European city.

The project started 12 years ago, with an initial cost of around 70 million euros, while so far more than 100 million have been spent and it is in the condition described above. The firm that carried out those works was “Joint Venture Dondi & Kubota”, a merger of two well-known companies in the field of plant construction, especially in Italy and the other for pipes and valves originating in Japan.

The company was supposed to complete the plant that would serve to process urban wastewater within a 4-year period, but no work has been done on that site since 2018. The conflict has also reached the doors of international arbitration courts, where the Albanian state once again lost and the cost increased, while the latest maintenance tenders only add to the delay of this site, without providing a final solution.

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