Oil and chrome concessions scandal

One day after Top Channel published how concessionary companies are exploiting the national wealth by paying minimal taxes to the Albanian state, new shocking facts come to light about the abuses in this sector.

Official sources from Albpetrol, the company through which the state is supervising all oil concessions, say that during this time the concessionary companies have declared more than 1.5 billion USD of spending without submitting the respective bills.

A scandal that mounts up to 12% of the Gross Domestic Product, and which shows that the state has never inspected the concessionaries, although it is one of the strongest legal conditions. According to the concession agreements, all companies are obliged to verify the spending for investments and also the operative ones through bills, which need to be handed over to Albpetrol.

This is because the spending are the key element that define obligations which private companies need to pay to the state for the exploitation of natural assets. In all concessionary agreements it has been clearly defined that the private companies will start to pay tax on profit at 50% after they have covered investments and the daily spending that they operate in their activity.

Due to the declarations of very huge spending, which have never been verified by Albpetrol, none of the concessionary companies has paid any tax.

Although since 2005, only oil and chrome exports have been more than 1.6 billion USD, the government has collected only the minimal obligations from the unearned income. According to the Albpetrol, the tax on profit has been disappeared through spending that have no bills, a scheme that could have robbed hundreds of millions of dollars from the Albanian citizens during these eight years.

TOP Channel, 31.10.2013