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The new Minister of Tourism approves the contract amendment 10 months after the start of the works; the fictitious cost goes to 8.5 million euros for three guide stations...
The Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sports, Blendi Gonxhe, has intervened in one of the most questionable tenders of former Minister Mirela Kumbaro, adding another 1.6 million euros to the existing contract for the construction of three tourist stations along the Vjosa River.
The tender in question, with the object of "Multi-functional Center in the Vjosa Valley", includes three guide stations in Përmet, Tepelena and Pishe-Poro in Vlora. It was held on December 3, 2024 and was won by two companies selected in a bidding process with the then Minister Mirela Kumbaro, with a contract value of 6.9 million euros including VAT, or 99.2% of the limit fund.
According to independent experts, the real cost of the project does not exceed 2.3 million euros, which means that the initial value had tripled in the first phase of the tender. But instead of launching investigations into the abuse, the new minister Blendi Gonxhe decided to “fix” the bargain of his predecessor, approving an addendum to the contract with the absurd justification that “technical difficulties and unforeseen works have arisen”.
In the Public Procurement Bulletin of October 13, 2025, the contract amendment and the increase in financial value were officially announced. The official justification is a common bureaucratic trick, “significant discrepancies between the project and the works estimate” used to legalize theft during the implementation of public contracts.
In fact, the project had been approved and technically assessed in detail, and any alleged “difficulties” should have been anticipated before the works began. This makes the financial addition a clear violation of the Public Procurement Law, as changing the value of the contract after its signing is only permitted in exceptional cases and with the approval of the Council of Ministers.
Despite this, Blendi Gonxhe has given approval to increase the contract to 8.5 million euros, from 6.9 million previously, increasing the abuse started by Kumbaro to 4.6 million euros above the actual cost.
At the same time, Gonxhe extended the work deadline by three months, to justify the financial increase and to create the impression that the project required "additional expenses."
Instead of being investigated for abuse of public funds, the minister, who himself has been a symbol of corruption affairs in the Directorate of Transport, is today repeating the same pattern of robbery in another strategic sector.
The question remains: will SPAK intervene, or will it remain silent as always about the affairs of ministers who are kept under the umbrella of Babloku? Because if there is a pure case of institutional corruption, it is precisely this one, an inflated tender, an illegal addition, and a minister who signs off on a new theft with all the paperwork in order./ Pamphlet
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