The former Minister of Health, Ilir Beqaj, has discharged the responsibility for the sterilization concession to the Bid Evaluation Commission, saying that they were the ones who selected the winner.
Unofficial sources said that during his testimony of 9 hours, the former Health official said that the Minister had a role only in issuing the order for the opening of the concession procedure.
Although he admitted that he signed the contract himself, Beqaj further clarified that the conditions and content of the concession agreement were determined by a joint team of the Ministry and the union of the winning companies.
A big question mark regarding the sterilization affair, apart from the high cost, has been the winning company owned by the Albanian immigrant in Italy, Ilir Rrapaj.
In 2000, he founded a company in Perugia with a small capital of 1,500 euros, but after the victory of the Socialist Party in the June 2013 elections, the businessman originally from the village of Rexhepaj in Vlora returned to Albania, where, according to BIRN, he established contacts with the head of Health, Ilir Beqaj.
The winner of the concession, together with some Italian businessmen, had several meetings and contacts with the head of health.
After returning to Albania, through his company Investital LLC, with a capital of 1000 euros registered in Pristina with only one employee, Rrapaj owned 40% of the shares in a merger of companies, which won the tender for the sterilization of surgical equipment.
Rrapaj's partners in this merger, three companies from the Umbria region.
In 2015, former minister Beqaj was asked over the phone about his relationship with Ilir Rrapaj, but at first he denied knowing him.
After BIRN sent the Minister some photos where he appeared with the businessman, Ilir Beqaj admitted that "he knew Mr. Ilir Rrapaj."
The 10-year concession procedure worth 9.6 billion ALL was opened on February 13, 2015, by the decision of Ilir Beqaj.
Due to the high cost that caused the number of operations to be reduced in some hospitals, the contract with the company in question was revised after 5 years of operation in 2020.
Until 2021, according to the data reported by the Ministry of Finance, the Albanian state budget has paid the entity "Sani Servis" that contains the merger of the companies winning the concession with about 58 million euros, or 57% of the revised value of the contract of 12.3 billion ALL.
Ilir Rrapaj's investment through Investital Llc to control 40% of the company with the 100 million dollar concession is only 8,500 euros. /Oranews/