With the pledge “We are becoming an energy superpower”, former Prime Minister Sali Berisha towards the end of his term in 2012, signed the concession of several hydropower plants in the country, Top Channel reports.
In order to turn the country into an energy superpower, Berisha intended to bring under the control of the Russians, the largest energy assets that the country has, the large hydropower plants on the Drin River and those that will be built on the Skavica and Vjosë river.
In that period, Berisha agreed the deal with a delegation of the Russian public company RusHydro, headed by its president Yevgeny Dod, who showed interest in privatizing the Vau i Deja hydropower plant, the one at Koman, as well as building Skavica and Hydropower Plant over Vjosa and an underwater cable link between Albania and Italy.
The meeting was reported by the then Prime Minister on July 15, 2011. A second meeting was held on September 25, 2012. A month later, through a letter addressed to the Minister of Energy at that time, Edmond Haxhinasto, the former Russian ambassador in Tirana, Abramov requested that according to
agreement that the prime minister had made with the Russians of HydroRus, the Albanian institutions to give the Russian company the design materials for the plant of Vau i Deja, in Koman, as well as for the construction projects of Skavica plant and the one on the Vjosa river.
Currently, Skavica, which was given for construction to an American company through an American loan, is strongly opposed by Berisha.
Berisha’s verbal agreements to give the Russian state company all the big energy works in Albania were not realized because a year later Berisha lost power and the new government had a different orientation.
Yevgeny Dod, the senior manager of the Russian energy company, was appointed to this position at the proposal of the former Russian Deputy Prime Minister in 2009, while the press comments that his strongest connection is the oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov.
Dod, a longtime ally of Vladimir Putin, served as chairman of HydroRus’s board from 2009 until 2015 when he was fired to become chairman of energy company Quadra.
Top Channel
