Public advertisement scandal

Documents show a scheme that includes a chain of transactions with quick money transfers from one company to another.

On May 21st, the Culture Center at the Ministry of Defense has paid almost 1 million USD to the “Zoom Event” company.

One day later, this company gave the entire fund to another company named “Pro Image”, as this document shows.

According to this scheme of transactions, “Zoom Event” has served only as a mediator for passing money from the Ministry of Defense to the “Pro Image” company.

The latter made the fund distribution to the media for publishing the Defense Ministry advertisement.

But the distribution shows other facts which show that the money of the Albanian tax payers have been used unequally.

Documents show that from 17 to 31 May, Pro Image has distributed half of the fund, 42.3 million ALL.

More than 71% of this fund has gone only to Media 6, the group that belongs to TV Klan.

The Albanian television has taken 11.8%, while Ora News and Focus Group have taken 7.1% each. Last on the list is Top Channel, which has taken less than 2.8% of the total, or 423.000 USD.

The distribution shows that the tax payers’ money has been used by discriminating the biggest media outlet in the country, and by favoring the media that are close to the government, with 30 times more.

But this is only the most recent case of discrimination, which has been going on for years and has been reported by the OSCE.

In the period 2007-2012, the government and its agencies have distributed 16 million USD of public advertisements.

During this time “Top Channel” has taken only 3.6% of the total, a symbolic figure, although it is the biggest media in the country.

Top Channel