In 2020, the Municipality of Lezha granted an amount of 2.5 million euros for the construction of Zejmen unit’s aqueduct, which should have been completed at the end of 2021.
But the investigative program Fiks Fare on Top Channel showed that the new aqueduct has already begun to degrade with cracked pipes, destroyed buildings, and breakdown of pumps.
The municipality and the Waterworks of Lezha admit the big problems, as they justify themselves that “we have not yet taken it over” as the fault, according to them, was the COVID.
The newsroom of the investigative show received several reports and videos about the water supply of the village of Tresh.
The video shows a destroyed water supply pump, buildings without cover and fence. “Look how they built this water supply, just to steal the money. Much poor work has been done,” claim the residents.
After the citizens’ report, a Fiks Fare television group traveled to the village to see the problem closely.
“We made the videos a few days ago. We have been informed that there has been a fatal accident here. Poor concrete was laid, without iron mesh, without fencing, without sheet metal. Funds have been thrown there and the water supply was fnished a few months ago. They have done it several times and currently it is not being delivered. It was just a show for the elections. Elections are for them, not for us. We are neither there nor here,” says a resident.
After this, the Fiks Fare group goes inside the village to see the works. Journalists talk to a 75-year-old resident, who says that sometimes the water comes to her house and sometimes it doesn’t.
“We don’t have drinking water. I pay the money throughout the month. I get 10,000 Lek ($100) of pension, I have to pay for water, electricity and everything else. They brought the water in the summer. Sometimes it comes dark, sometimes it doesn’t come at all. In July and August, we didn’t even have water to wash our clothes. There should be checks, whoever did this should be held accountable,” she says.
The municipality of Lezha justifies itself saying that the pandemic had made it difficult to carry out the works of the water supply.
“During the implementation of this work, a number of problems were encountered. During the period of implementation of the works, Albania was under the global Covid 19 pandemic, and due to the restrictions, the entrepreneur encountered problems with the organization of the staff, creating obstacles in their work. For these reasons, the investment has not yet been taken over by the Municipality of Lezha. As soon as this phase is completed and the repair of the defects, the procedures for the temporary handover of this work will be continued,” say the officials from the Municipality of Lezha.
Top Channel
