Sale tender of 5 HPPs fails
14/09/2012 00:00
Linda Rama: Between Family, Work and Albania’s Future 18/08 14:30
The government failed for the second time with the sale of the four
existing hydropower plants. No one made any bid in the tender for the
purchase of two hydropower plants in Bistrica and Ulzw of Shkopet.
“The Commission gathered today at 09:00, and because no offer was presented for the Bistrica I, Bistrica II, Ulez and Shkopet power plants they decided to propose the Minister of Economy, Trade and Energy to announce the failure of this process”, declared the Deputy Minister of Energy, Sokol Dervishaj.
The Deputy Minister declared that there have been some interested companies for their purchase, but there has been no offer, since they have set some conditions to the government.
“They are looking for an improvement of the process regarding the relation of these hydropower plants with the Albanian Power Corporation, the way and the procedure in which the production will be realized, together with the sale and transmission of the electric energy from these power plants. We will propose METE, the Council of Ministers the necessary regulations of this tender in the next procedures that will be made public very soon”, Dervishaj declared.
In the tender were present three opposition MPs, Eduard Shalsi, Taulant Balla and Erjon Brace. Brace declared that the failure of the tender must convince the government to take in consideration the opposition’s stance as it was expressed initially.
“If these gentlemen will continue this, as the Minister declared, our proposition is ready. We must cancel the sale, so that a national asset cannot be sold with ridiculous low prices and above all, it must not be sold for aggravating even more the situation of the Albanian Power Corporation, which is one of the biggest assets of Albania”, Brace declared.
Erjon Brace added that this privatization is against the interests of the Albanian citizens, part of a strategy that brings profits to the individuals and causes losses to the state.
“We suspect that there is a coordinated behavior of all bidders with the purpose to profit as more as possible from this privatization. The public interest is the last that is being discussed in this tender. It is very clear that it is related with the government’s strategy to privatize the profits and leaving all losses to the state”, Brace declared.
The four HPPs on sale have a capacity of 77MW and produce 406 million KWh per year.
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