The Albanian government announced through the Minister of Economy,
Edmond Haxhinasto, that the negotiations with the “Vetro Energy”
consortium are over. Now the government will open negotiating with the
Chinese company, “Win Business”, the next competitor for the Albpetrol
privatization.
The government team for the Albpetrol privatization sent the report that makes official the failure of the 850 million EUR offer.
Top Channel secured a complete copy of the document sent to the Albanian government, in which “Vetro” is accused by the government negotiation team of not being serious and launching false public declarations.
The negotiation team says that the Ministry has constantly asked “Vetro” to prove its financial capacity and the existence of the funds needed for the agreement. But although the representative of this consortium, Mathew Roszak, declared that they have the financial means, he never gave any concrete evidence to prove it.
The document says that “Vetro” has frequently launched untrue declarations about their purpose in this agreement. The report also mentions some reasons for the failure of the biggest historical privatization. One of them is that during the negotiations, Vetro claimed to have created the wrong impression that through this transaction they would own the entire land for every oil well. In total this is a 850 square meter area.
The negotiating group claims that the government had made it clear that the land wouldn’t be sold before the tender was over, and its value doesn’t go beyond 10 million EUR, while Vetro was valuing it at 400 million EUR.
“It is clear that Vetro has brought this argument to avoid paying the full price”, the Ministerial document says.
The document concludes that “Vetro” failed to answer on time and “Patton Boggs”, the same consultant that guaranteed the Vetro Energy consortium recommends the Council of Ministers to announce that the negotiations failed.
Top Channel also learned that after this report, the Ministry of Economy prepared the draft decision that announces the failure of the agreement and authorizes the Ministry to start negotiating with the second company, the Chinese “Win Busienss”.
But this decision raises other legal questions about the regularity of the process. The first decision clearly stated the concrete deadlines for the validity of all respective offers and guarantees, which, according to this decision, has now expired.
Rezart Taci declared for “Reuters” that they were surprised by the government’s decision when they were working to finalize of the sale.
The 85 million EUR failure
The Commission and Patton Boggs guaranteed the validity, but will they hold any kind of legal responsibility?
The official failure of the 850 million EUR bid raises strong legal suspicions on those who administered the process, especially the 85 million EUR guarantee. During the negotiations, the group has publicly declared that the guarantee is safe.
“The guarantee was made in a bank, with an original document that was verified by the Ministry and the consultant as a valid document”, declared the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Energy, Sokol Dervishaj, on September 2012.
Another argument used by the negotiating group was that the guarantee was considered valid even by Patton Boggs, the Albanian government consultant, which is paid 720.000 USD annually and which would receive 22 million EUR if this was to be successful. Patton Boggs will receive some percentage even if the agreement with Win Business will be successful.
Three months later, when the first suspects of validity of the guarantee showed up, Top Channel asked once again the Minister of Economy if the guarantee was safe, and the answer was the same.
“I believe that we have answered to this question. I repeat that the verification was made by the consultant, and as result, the answer is very clear”, Dervishaj declared.
For more than two months, the Ministry of Economy has officially asked the money of guarantee through the American Chartered Bank, but it never arrived.
The document which announces the official failure, although it carefully describes the negotiation progress and the reason why it failed, does not mention the 10% guarantee.
The government officials publicly admitted that the guarantee is problematic and that it could end up in court. Now that the offer has officially failed, the question is who will be held responsible for 85 million EUR damage made to the budget: the negotiating group, “Patton Boggs”, or both of them?
Top Channel
