Albania Leaves Huge Debt to Expropriated Families Unpaid

The Albanian Road Authority, in a written statement to BIRN, acknowledged the arrears but blamed previous administrations and property registration problems, adding that it had asked the government to increase its budget for compensation in the next two years.

"The unpaid compensation derives from problems with ownership documents. Delays caused by a lack of funds [in the authority] are just a small part of it," the Road Authority said.

"The Albanian Road Authority remains engaged to pay the expropriated owners as soon as possible. To resolve this problem, accumulated over years, we have demanded a bigger budget for expropriation payments for 2020 and 2021," it added.

The Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy did not respond to specific questions sent by BIRN on the findings of this investigation.

Families still owed tens of millions of euros:

Tirana Outer Ring Road seen in this photo under construction in 2017. Photo: Malton Dibra/LSA

Documents obtained by BIRN show the government expropriated assets worth 96.7 million euros during the last 15 years.

However, it has paid out less than half of this sum in compensation and it still owes families roughly 50.2 million euros.

BIRN obtained a list of 83 road projects for which the government has not yet fully repaid those who lost their property.

The oldest arrears concern a road built in 2004 to link the town of Kukes with the half-finished and unused local airport.

The Council of Ministers issued a decision on February 20 2004 to pay out 94 million lek, equal to 770,000 euros, in compensation for the land expropriated for the road, but the money has yet to be cleared.

BIRN also found out that the Council of Minister made no...