Lawyer and former minister Eduard Halimi said today in relation to the disputed contract for the renovation of the major port of Durrës, that it leaves an open window for money to go and come to fiscal havens, without knowing their real owner.
“The parent companies are registered in the commercial register of the Cayman Islands, which are a declared fiscal haven in the European Union”, explains Halimi.
He adds that the contract has many question marks which leave room for doubt, as public property is being handed over to a network of companies registered in tax havens.
“Fiscal havens do not necessarily constitute a crime of corruption or money laundering. This stigma is not always true. But the issue gets complicated when it comes to major public contracts and strategic assets that go into them.”
The government is the main fighter of tax evasion, as before retailers have gone to prison for not cutting a tax coupon, while for such a large investment, the Ministry of Finance does not establish any clause to fight evasion of taxes, the expert adds .
“That’s why the Ministry of Finance, which is the guardian of tax control, checking everything from barbers to media companies or taking people who don’t pay tax coupons to prison, but now it’s becoming a promoter of fiscal evasion, let’s be clear about that,” says Halimi.
The lawyer cites as an analogous example the case of the 8-year prison sentence of the former Austrian finance minister, after he hid his income in tax havens.
The former Minister of Justice sees as a solution the drafting of a legal initiative that ties the government’s hands in order not to transfer public assets to tax havens.
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