The Municipality of Tirana, led by Erion Veliaj, has been in the news in recent months for the corruption affairs of its officials. The latest to come to the media was an investigation by BIRN, which highlighted the scheme set up by the former deputy mayor of Tirana, now Minister of State for Local Government, Arbjan Mazniku, and the former advisor to Prime Minister Edi Rama, who was also the former director of the Media and Information Agency, Endri Fuga.
We recall that Arbjan Mazniku and Endri Fuga are two close friends who, together with Erion Veliaj, once led the "Mjaft" movement.
The two friends, already in key positions in the state, also became business partners in 2020, purchasing the restaurant "The Home", which was owned by Ledion Çollaku, an old friend of Maznik. Today, the restaurant is registered with the Central Bank of Albania with their wives as owners: Marinela Lika with 50% of the shares and Besa Fuga with 50%.
So far, everything is fine. But the two close friends in power haven't left it at that. Çollaku, Maznik's early friend, also had a company called "3i-Solutions", where he later sold the shares to his sister's husband, Ervis Smakaj.
The company in question has been found to have received 4 tenders worth around 9.2 million euros, with questionable procedures, from 2020 to 2022. The tenders were awarded at a time when Arbjan Mazniku was also deputy mayor of Tirana, raising suspicions of conflict of interest and favoritism towards this company.
Tenders won by the entity “3i-Solutions” from the Municipality of Tirana. VNA.al has conducted a search for these procedures and the first one dates back to January 2020, which was opened by the Tirana Waterworks for the “purchase of equipment and operating system for the modernization of Call Center technology”, worth 50 million old lek. Two companies participated in this tender, “PC Store” and the merger of operators “3i-Solutions and SYNAPSE ATS”.
The entity "PC Store", which could have made the purchase for less lek, was disqualified from the competition and the winner was declared "3i-Solutions and SYNAPSE ATS" with a bid of 95% of the tender value.
The second tender is from March 2021 and was opened by the company "Tirana DC", which is owned by the Municipality of Tirana. The procedure, worth 737 million old lek, aimed to "computerize the operational processes of the company Tirana DC sh.a., implement the supporting infrastructure, as well as their maintenance."
Two companies had expressed interest in this procedure: the union of operators “Infosoft Systems” sh.pk & “ikubINFO” and the competitor “3i-Solutions”. Using the same method as in the first one, the union of operators “Infosoft Systems” sh.pk & “ikubINFO” was disqualified from the competition in this tender, which had requested less, to declare the winner the company of Maznik’s friend, “3i-Solutions”, which had requested 79 thousand euros more to carry out the work.
Then, in January 2022, the Municipality of Tirana announced the winner of the tender for the creation of the e-Recruitment platform. According to the procedure, the platform would serve to “increase the quality, efficiency and performance of the recruitment process for municipal staff” and 110 million old lek were spent on this.
In this procedure, there were 2 companies that competed, “3i-Solutions” and “INFOSOFT SYSTEMS”. The latter was disqualified from the competition and thus the tender was awarded to “3i-Solutions”.
And the last procedure it received from the Municipality of Tirana results in June 2022. The tender, opened by UKT for "annual service and maintenance of the Call Center system", had a value of 21 million old lek.
Of the three competitors that participated, the winner was “3i-Solutions” with a bid of 95% of the tender value. While the other two competitors, “IT Store” and “Information Business System – IBS”, who had requested much less to carry out the work, were disqualified from the competition.
All four tenders won by the company, owned by the brother-in-law of the restaurant administrator of Arbjan Maznik and Endri Fuga, have been marked by Open Data with a red flag, which leaves room for suspicions that the company in question was favored in the Tirana Municipality procedures.
While, in any normal mind, there is no room for doubt that "3i-Solutions" could have been favored, when its former owner has done business and is an employee in the restaurant of two of the most loyal people of Prime Minister Edi Rama and the mayor of Tirana, Erion Veliaj. Here the last word belongs to the SPAK prosecutors, who do not know where to start with the affairs of the Municipality of Tirana.
/VNA/
