The unconditional government transfer dedicated to municipalities in the new budget for 2026 will be used, according to the Ministry of Environment, to close the waste landfills at the Elbasan and Fier incinerators, which are out of operation.
In early July, the landfill of waste that was supposed to be processed at the defunct Elbasan incinerator caught fire. This was not an isolated incident, but a recurring event for the umpteenth year in a row, with the managers of the public company that manages the landfill blaming overfilling and high temperatures.
After spending millions of euros on building incinerators that do not function, the government has decided to spend more money to close waste landfills in Elbasan and Fier.
Deputy Minister of the Environment, Elda Xhumari, admitted on Tuesday in Parliament that an unconditional government transfer, dedicated to local self-government units, will in fact go towards closing waste fields in Elbasan and Fier, where another incinerator built with public money is not functional.
"In this context, the need for a review of the distribution of funds in the Fier and Elbasan regions has been identified due to the closure of existing landfills and the lack of processing capacities with the aim of sustainable and equitable territorial management," said Xhumari, speaking before the Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources, Infrastructure and Sustainable Development.
The fund to which the deputy minister referred is 1 billion lek, which in the new budget is dedicated as an unconditional transfer to all municipalities “for urban waste management.” The opposition expressed concern about the reallocation of these funds without a clear strategy for putting in operation the incinerators, where millions of euros have already been invested.
"Why don't you put the incinerators into operation, but spend 1 billion lek on closing the waste plants," asked the DP MP, also the vice-chair of this committee, Blendi Himçi, who underlined that the Elbasan incinerator had only been operating for a few days since its construction, while the Fier incinerator had never been put into operation.
Xhumari did not answer the question clearly, but said that "an assessment has been made and for 2026 it is foreseen that plans for both waste disposal sites will be drawn up."
The Elbasan incinerator cost the state budget 26 million euros, while the Fier incinerator cost around 32 million euros, while both facilities are currently under seizure by the Special Prosecution Office, SPAK, after the discovery of a corruption scandal in the awarding of concession contracts for their construction.
The Municipality of Elbasan acknowledged the waste management crisis, and in August of this year, it again requested government assistance to build a new landfill or expand the existing landfill.
Incineration was strongly defended by Prime Minister Edi Rama as a final solution to the waste problem, awarding 3 concession contracts for the construction of incinerators in Elbasan, Fier and Tirana in a span of a few years.
All three of these facilities are currently under state seizure by order of the Special Prosecution Office (SPAK), whose investigations have brought a dozen state officials to justice on charges of corruption, money laundering, and abuse of office.
After spending a decade investing hundreds of millions of euros in incinerators, the government announced a new waste management reform, returning to a waste management hierarchy that prioritizes source separation, reuse, recycling, and composting.
In this spirit, a legal initiative was approved in the Assembly that provides for the return of the National Waste Management Agency, AKEM, into a joint-stock company responsible for the final management of waste throughout the Republic and placing municipalities in the positions of clients of this company for the disposal and treatment of waste.
The legal provisions of the new law reinforce the "polluter pays" principle, implying an increase in fees and costs for waste management, but without managing to provide a transparent financial bill of how much their implementation will actually cost taxpayers./Reporter.al
