Author: Denis TAHIRI
It's March 14, Summer's Day. It's almost 21pm. In the streets of the capital, people are hurrying as usual, some hurry to go to the various activities that take place in Tirana for Summer Day, while a minority are heading to the 00 December area, where in a social center called " Bunkeri", from where the voice of a popular music singer known as "Moli" can be heard. The smell of beer and cigarettes mixes with the smell of asphalt coming from all four sides. Through the alleys you can see the workers of the municipality hurrying. "Frosina Plaku" street is being repaved. But just repaving, no one is bothered by power poles in the middle of the road. The only concern they have for the people who are laying the asphalt is a few minutes more work to get around.
A boy, no more than 25 years old, is taking a photo of the pillar while chatting with an elderly man, the latter prompting him to post the photos online. "I did it and threw it on the Internet, so they can see that they don't even bother to push those two happy pillars at least two meters further on the sidewalk."
Meanwhile, just a few tens of meters away, work has started on the asphalting of the "Bogdan" road. The same situation is in one of the branches of the "Pjeter Budi" road, where no more than 50 meters of the road have been waiting for asphalt to be laid for more than 10 years. A similar situation appears on "Mustafa Lleshi" street.
All roads are being paved with asphalt. The noise of cars is felt everywhere and it seems as if the capital city is a construction site. As the date of the elections approaches, the smell of asphalt in the neighborhoods of the capital increases. In political and media terminology, it is called electorate asphalt and it is not a phenomenon that appears only in the capital. In many municipalities the situation is similar.
Tenders that raise questions
In Kruja, the municipality of this city on March 16 will announce a tender for "System-asphalting of the "Zalljaneve" road, Zalle village, N.A. itch" with a limit value of ALL 6, where offers from interested parties would be received until March 166, while the contract would be signed on April 416,00. Only one company participated in the tender, winning it in the amount of ALL 27. But what impresses the most is the extension time of the works, which is only 12 days, which means that the asphalting of this road would end on May 5, just 505 days before the local elections.
Similar is another tender for "System-Asphalting of Kasme Street” in Kruja. But the Municipality of Krujë is not the only one where the dates of tenders for road paving fall very close to the date of the elections. The same coincidence is also observed in the Municipality of Durrës, which on April 5 would hold a tend for the "Reconstruction of the city's roads", where through this tender, 9 roads in the coastal city would be reconstructed. The contract for this tender was signed on April 26, and the winning entity had 42 days to reconstruct 9 roads.
On the other hand, the Municipality of Vlora, on 7.10. 2022 would announce the tender for "Requalification of the block of flats bounded by "Cameria" Boulevard, "Pelivan Leskaj" Street, "Kujtim Beqiri" Street, "Piro Sava" Street, for which the winner was announced on 10.11.2022, while the contract with the winner has been concluded on 13.2.2023, with a deadline of 2 months for the completion of the works, setting April 13 as the completion date. A similar situation appears with the tender for the reconstruction of the road in the village of Rekavove, where even though the winner is announced 2 months before the end of 2022, the contract is signed on February 10, 2023 with a 2-month deadline for the completion of the works.
Even in Topojë Municipality, similar tenders are present. On April 26, he signed a contract tender with the object "Road paving, pothole filling in 2023 for the roads of the Municipality of Tropoja", where everything foreseen in the tender must be completed within 1 month. Even the Municipality of Gramsci is not an exception in the list of local governments that have carried out tenders, whose contract of works coincides with doing public works in a short period of time before the elections, during the elections or that start before the elections and end after the end of the elections. On April 26, the Municipality of Gramsh signed a tender contract with the subject "System - asphalting of the former SMT residential block", and the deadline for carrying out these works is only 36 days. This means that part of the works fall in the period before the holding of local elections and another part after.
In election years, the level of public works increases
Election years seem to have an inevitable connection with the increase in expenditures of state institutions for public works. At least that's what the numbers show. In the first 6 months of 2020, which is not an election year, local government units throughout the country, according to Open Data Albania announced 2,314 tenders, of which 1,908 were announced as winners. Meanwhile, the amount without VAT of the limit fund for tenders announced as winners was 19,777,692,732 Lek.
While a year later, on April 25, citizens went to the ballot boxes to vote for their representatives in the parliament. But what stands out is the fact that during the first 6 months of 2021, local government units announced 3,745 tenders, of which there were 2,278 winners. 40,614,468,423 ALL without VAT Limit fund for tenders announced with winners. In 2022, this funding drops significantly, where for 1,738 tenders announced as winners in the first 6 months of the year, with a total value of announced winners excluding VAT of 13,940,580,114 Lek. 2023, unlike 2022, is an election year, where this time in the ballot box, it is voted who will lead the municipalities for the next 4 years. For the first 6 months of this year, 1,073 tenders were declared winners with a total value excluding VAT of 16,090,059,609 Lek.
"A characteristic of public procurement in Albania is that during election years we always have a concentration of contracts and their values which are allocated through tenders", says Arianita Brahaj, head of "Open Data Albania". She also adds that in an assessment made by Open Data in the run-up to the 2021 elections, it was observed that there were almost 20% more funds in the months before the elections than in other periods. "This coincides with the desire of governments, whether central or local, to inject more money in the pre-election period." she says, adding that this creates the opportunity for governments, especially in local government, to create what is called an "Inaugurating Atmosphere".
"If you look at the list of investments at the time when the state budget was allocated to local governments, there is a table that stands out with some public works, which are not necessarily roads, given mainly to local governments". she says, emphasizing that it has been noticed that there is a characteristic that in election periods there is a higher tendency for funds that are tendered, that is, public contracts.
The construction of roads has also been identified in the OSCE-ODIHR report, which states that:The observers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of ODIHR observed numerous cases in which local administrations engaged in similar activities, including repairs of local infrastructure.
But even in the reports of the Albanian organizations, this problem has not passed without being identified. "Asked about the perceptions they have about the use of public assets in favor of the campaign, voters in the municipalities of Kukës, Korçë, Malësi e Madhe, Durrës, Lezha, Fier have affirmed to KSHH observers that the works and reconstructions in various spaces in these municipalities are deliberately carried out a few months or weeks before the date of the elections in favor of the electoral campaign of the mayors, re-candidates". it is stated in the report of the Albanian Committee of Helsinki, published on May 12, 2023, in which it is also added that in the Municipality of Tirana, observers have reported massive paving of roads in different neighborhoods, for a period of nearly 3 months until a few days before the date of the elections, questioning the long-term quality of the works which are closed for a very short time.
For urban planner Doriana Musaji, the duration of works is always a guarantee of quality. "The project itself, the way the intervention was conceived, why on this road and not on another, that is, the way these roads are selected, which for more than 4 years remain untouched and then 3 months before the elections, the intervention takes place is itself alarm bell as it should attract the attention of the authorities dealing with the control of these works", says Mrs. Musaji, who adds that in her observation, there have also been roads in which the asphalt layer has been replaced without it being necessary to replace it.
"It has been seen that the intervention was mainly in the layers of asphalt, in what is considered electoral asphalt, that is, an asphalt carpet that is installed for a short time. A few white lines are added and it stays there." she says, stressing that there have been more in-depth interventions, starting from the surface water drainage channels or in other layers of the road, but even these are segmental, lacking a comprehensive approach. "It does not intervene in residential blocks, but in small segments which, where they are separated, accumulate the problems of the entire neighborhood". says urban planner Musaji, adding that in this way a solution is given for one point and the problem is not seen as a whole, and this is a consequence of the decisions that are made for electoral effects and not for the purpose of solving a problem or situation which is complex, since the road it's not just asphalt, it's traffic, it's mobility, movement and safety for people and cars.
"So it is not seen in its complexity as an urban space, it is simply an image that shows that the municipality is working, while the consequences of this distorted image are those that after a few months with the high temperatures in summer or with the first rains of autumn, that asphalt ends destroyed and after 4 years everything starts again from the beginning. In general, this is how it has been operated, so that even that asphalt does not last more than 2 years, since we have elections once every two years, unfortunately, and these interventions are not only for the local government, but once every two years, every time there are elections". she concludes.
After the election day on May 14, everything returns to normal. The machines are turned off, the smell of asphalt is no longer felt in the city. Passers-by walk unconcernedly over the thin carpet of electoral asphalt that will soon be wiped away to reveal what lies beneath, a sight they will remember until the next election when the electoral asphalt is restored.
This article is part of the Investigative Journalism Laboratory project, which is financially supported by the Public Relations Office of the US Embassy in Tirana. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the Department of State.
