Prime Minister Edi Rama promised on Tuesday the completion of the Qukës-Qafë Plloçë road segment, an investment that began nearly 15 years ago and has cost Albanian taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
He offered his Facebook followers two photos of the asphalt laid on this road segment with the caption "part of the segment towards completion, Qukës-Qafë Plloçë".
It is a 43-kilometer-long segment with two lanes, which is expected to connect the village of Qukës in Librazhd with Qafë e Plloçës in Pogradec, thus shortening the Tirana-Korça road.
For its completion in 2022, the Albanian government decided to take out a new loan worth 184 million Saudi riyals or about 48 million dollars, while the road had already cost 160 million, with a cost overrun of 60% over the initial estimate.
The additional loan agreement was signed between the Albanian government and the Saudi Fund for Development, an agency of the Saudi Kingdom that provides development loans to various countries around the world.
Under the agreement, the Saudis agreed to provide 184 million riyals after providing part of the initial loan as well as another additional loan in 2014.
At the time, government officials told Parliament that the new loan would be used to complete 6 percent of the remaining works, which have not yet been completed.
Construction work on this road began with state budget funds in 2009 and progressed for 2.9 kilometers before a consortium of creditors, including the Islamic Development Bank, the OPEC Fund, the Abu Dhabi Fund, and the Saudi Fund, came to the rescue to finance the rest of the road.
Work actually began in 2013, but changes to the road design, undertaken by the new government, immediately increased the cost by another $25 million, which was secured with a second loan from the Saudis in 2014, and the work was supposed to be completed according to the contract around 2018.
The loans given for this road have a long repayment period and an initial five-year period during which no principal is paid, only interest. But even though these interests have started to be paid, the road still remains unusable for citizens. /BIRN/
