Oil, 30.000 tons of poisons in Albanian cars

If the bad road infrastructure was not enough, car owners have to be concerned even for the gas quality.

Shqip Newspapers shows that a detailed report, planned and published recently by the Central Technical Inspectorate, dependent to the Ministry of Economy, displays the millions of EUR in abuses with the oil market. Several inspections in gas stations have discovered that 10% of the market has off the standard gas.

The gas sold in Albania has illegal mixtures that contain polluting elements, not only for the vehicle, but also for the environment. 5585 inspections made by the Technical Central Institution during January-August 2011 discovered that 592 of the inspections, 10% in national scale, resulted with off the standard substances.

The web portal energjia.al says that the samples were taken in different gas stations, and there is no distinction. The TCI should have specified where they found these violations.

The data show that our market has 30.000 ton of off the standard fuels, a 4 billion ALL negative effect in the pockets of car owners, which could cause other expenses for car repairs.

However, it remains concerning the lack of transparency of the Central Technical Inspectorate, although they are legally bound to protect the consumer. Other EU countries would have mentioned the names of the companies that trade gas with illegal standards. This is for the own good of the consumers, and has nothing to do with the early criminal name publication of the police, which would help him to escape.

Another problem that has raised concerns among the experts of this area is related with the punitive measures that according to them are very low. The current law predicts fines that vary from 300.000 to 500.000 ALL for gas stations and 500.000 to 700.000 ALL for anonymous companies. They offer as example Greece, where such violations would be fined to 250.000 EUR (35 million ALL).

The debate about the fuel quality in the country and the punitive strength of the law has never stopped. The government tries to reduce pollution through decisions, by placing a limit on sulfur, but few are the institutions that have the courage to report how many companies will make the bigger damage, in order to inform the consumer.

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