Widening of the Elbasan road

The Road Directory was fined with 1 million ALL and one day after that they started the procedures for the environmental permit. The Director of the Environmental Agency, Sokol Lekaj, confirmed that the construction firms must respect a series of rules, such as the compensation of the green area, the air pollution and the cleaning of the trucks in teh working area.

“The interested party is the Municipality, but the tender was made by the General Road Directory. One week before the application, the inspectors have verified the situation on terrain. The works had already started and the trees were cut. We have asked their environmental permit, which they didn’t have, and we released a fine on June 26th. This is an administrative measures for failing to have the proper documents provided by the law”, Lekaj declared.

But were these rules respected, when the environmental permit was actually received some weeks later, when the construction companies had cut hundreds of trees and had already started working, without the conditions that preserve the environment.

“We were not present when the trees were cut. The number of trees that have been cut was noted down by the Municipality and the General Road Directory. We have obliged the implementation company to plant the exact number of trees that were cut. As for failing to realize the environmental conditions, there are legal sanctions such as a warning, a fine and even the interruption of the works and the cancellation of the environmental permit”, Lekaj declared.

The civil society protested by asking public transparency over the project that the Municipality will take in this area, and the environmental permit with which the construction company was operating.

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