After favoring him throughout the year with the price of oil, after legalizing the additions without permission in the middle of Tirana, Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku ended this year by killing Shefqet Kastrati.
Balluku appeared from Rinasi Airport, the generous concession that even with the signature of the deputy prime minister became even more generous with the extension of 13 years for Shefqet Kastrati.
The Deputy Prime Minister appeared from the terminal saying that it is December 30 and 15,000 passengers are expected at this airport and that thanks to Kastrati's work there were neither queues nor any other problems.
We cannot confirm if Balluku was really in Rinas on December 30, or if the video was a montage prepared earlier. But, we can confirm how the same minister was put in the service of the oligarch, first by making the Rinas road with one pass and then using the citizens' money to build a special road to the Kastrati concession.
We can also confirm the staggering figures that end up in the pockets of Shefqet Kastrati thanks to this concession.
He will close the Rinas Airport concession with a net profit of 300 million euros. The figure comes out of the rough calculation based on the balances submitted by the concessionaire company to the National Business Center.
According to these balance sheets, before the first two years were even completed, Kastrati distributed around 34 million euros as a dividend, which means 17 million euros in annual profit. The positive balance was recorded in the worst years for air transport, where flights were suspended or limited for months due to the Covid-19 pandemic. With the removal of these restrictions, Kastrati's annual profits could exceed 30 million euros.
However, if we take an average annual profit of 20 million euros and multiply it by 15, as many years as the concession that ends in 2035, the airport will provide Kastrati with 300 million euros in profits alone.
Shefqet Kastrati bought the Rinas Airport concession from the Chinese at the end of 2020 for 71 million euros, while recently he sold it to himself for 45 million euros. Adding to this amount 33 million euros of profits, it turns out that the concession has exceeded the purchase cost by 7 million euros.
In early 2021, the Government extended the deadline by 13 years based on a dubious audit report that showed how much damage the Covid pandemic had done to the concession. The extension of the contract was made with the obligation for Shefqet Kastrati to invest in the extension of the runway, the construction of two new entry-exit roads to the airport and other investments.
The contract states that the concessionaire undertakes investments of 100 million euros in the airport, a figure that is questioned based on the real cost of the works that are listed in the same agreement. Moreover, one of the access roads to the airport is being financed from the state budget through the Albanian Road Authority.
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