By Andi Bushati
Reading the file that led to the imprisonment of three of the important directors of the Municipality of Tirana, investigating many others, not only proved the existence of a structured gang of robbers, but also broke the myth pumped by Veliaj, about the skill and professionalism of his staff.
Maringlen Qato, Redi Molla and Taulant Tushe have stolen like amateurs, doing things squarely and leaving traces almost at every step. Their stupid mistake and the boss who instructed them is not only the fact that they set up the 5D company, to which they gave the money they tendered themselves. Their problem was not the desire to steal, but that they did it haphazardly, as amateurs, with the naivety of a child who sinks his teeth into the chocolate that appears in front of his eyes. If you look at the history of the scheme that has been built from the banality of the actions taken.
They created a company with fake shareholders, in 2016, almost immediately after the victory of the municipality, and without even passing a month after the establishment, they give it the first public money. In 8 years, they have done this with at least 22 tenders, worth millions of euros. This enterprise, although it has huge profits and undistributed dividends, is sold in several hands at ridiculous prices, without anyone scratching their heads that this could smell. Directors who are real owners are even more indifferent in appointing fictitious owners. This “honor” is given first to an electrician, and then to a baker. They don’t worry that all the employees of the company that wins public work know their real bosses, even as one of them claims, they know that Erion Veliaj is also with them. The conversations transcribed from the phones and computers seized by the prosecution prove that decisions are made by the director of the territory’s defense, Marenglen Qato, and the head of the water supply, Redi Molla. They recruit you to work, they resolve internal conflicts, they secure jobs, they answer the administrator’s phone. They are even so idiotic that they keep notebooks showing the money they withdraw and the fat dividends they distribute year after year. From these black books it is easy to understand how much “R” and “M” have earned from the funds they have transferred to themselves.
Even so far the stupidity is fine, but their blindness leads them to leave traces as if they lived in a surreal world of invulnerability.
Because the money flows and they don’t know where to take it, they decide to invest it where the stinking money of Tirana is washed, in construction. But they go a little further. On the shore of the Ardiatic. Exactly where that eavesdropped employee says to her friend: “this is the hotel of the company where I work and where Lali is also the owner”. As if this humiliating exposure is not enough, they ask Edi Rama and get, one by one, his signature for the status of “strategic investor” in tourism.
Are they full? Are they afraid of being spotted? Not at all. Because besides money, they also need votes. According to the expression that the leader taught them, “they have to steal the elections to steal the country and they have to rob Albania to be able to buy votes”.
The same director-owners make up the electoral staff for the re-election of Erion Veliaj. Even as it is read in the conversations found on the captured cell phones, they force the employees of the private company “5D” to be involved in the campaign. No one thinks that the more steps they take, the more visible the footprints they leave.
So, to sum it up, a group of directors of the municipality create a company to benefit from the money they have the duty to tender to normal businesses, when its profits become large they invest in other activities, again benefiting from favors from the state and finally, they use all these together in favor of the elections, to retain Erion Veliaj in the office of the municipality. They do everything so openly, so stupidly, so stupidly that when you read the investigative file you have to rub your eyes to understand that you are not dreaming.
In fact, this unbearable ease of action is the real news of her voluminous fascicles. Because until now, most people knew that the municipality of Tirana was designed as a big robbery machine. The way he bought the media, journalists, singers, comedians left no doubt about it. But all these fellows, selling their souls, had also created the myth of a Tyrant run by working people. People who had class, who built beautifully and with standards, who were more polished than their rivals. Often there were those who said: “They steal, they steal, but they know how to leave good deeds.”
Exactly this naive superstition was defiled by what we are hearing these days. They were not only thieves, but also amateurs. And when they have shown themselves to be so small in mind, so poor in imagination, and so uncreative in hiding their tracks, there is no way they could have been any different to us. When they were so lazy to fulfill the main mission they set themselves, there is zero chance of leaving any trace of talent on Tirana./Lapsi.al/
