FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
With 49% of the shares for dubious Turkish and Arab groups, and an exemption from the banking law, the government is creating a PPP bank that collects deposits without real guarantees, to finance Rama's clientele and international partners of money laundering schemes...
Following the approval of Law No. 23, dated March 17, 2025, establishing the Albanian Development Bank, the Albanian government decided on June 19 that this bank will operate as a joint stock company (JSC), with the Ministry of Finance as the first shareholder and owner of the majority of shares. This decision comes after a surprise change in the content of the initial draft law, just 24 hours before its approval in the Assembly.
In the initial version, it was envisaged that this bank would be 100% owned and managed by the state. But suddenly, this definition was replaced with a new formulation, which allows the involvement of individuals and private entities; such as banks, non-banking companies and investment funds, thus transforming it into a public-private partnership (PPP) type structure.
This last-minute change, which was made with the intervention of powerful circles outside the government and with the personal agreement of Prime Minister Edi Rama, raises strong doubts about the existence of hidden financial interests, which have nothing to do with the development of the national economy, but with the construction of a bank with a parallel mission and controlled from abroad.
According to the statute, the Albanian Development Bank will have the objective of supporting economic and social development through financing in underfinanced sectors, with a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as infrastructure projects. However, internal sources from the Ministry of Finance confirm that the share distribution will be: 51% state and 49% private, which means that the state has a technical majority, but not real control of the business lines.
The private actors who have shown interest in acquiring 49% of the shares, according to information provided by "Pamphlet", are mafia financial groups from Turkey and Arab countries, which have long been favored by Bablok with construction permits, public assets, free economic zones and tenders worth millions of euros.
This scheme is not new. Most of these groups are connected to larger networks; Russians, Chinese, Serbians, Hungarians, Maltese and Belarusians, who have penetrated the Albanian economy through concessions, privatizations and large investments, with a background that is not always clean.
Particularly worrying is the fact that the functions of this bank also include collecting deposits from citizens and businesses, and granting loans in exchange for collateral that can be up to 3 times higher than the loan amount. But in the event of bankruptcy, the guarantee for depositors is only up to 2.5 million new lekë, creating a scheme similar to the pyramid schemes of the 1990s, where individuals lost their life savings.
To avoid the bank's direct liability towards citizens, the Albanian Post Office has been introduced into the scheme, which will serve as an intermediary for the collection and management of deposits, a maneuver that aims to cover the risk of intentional bankruptcy, by sharing responsibility and shifting the blow to structures powerless to protect the interests of citizens.
All this is happening while, according to the approved law, the Albanian Development Bank is exempt from the implementation of laws that regulate the activities of other banks, which gives it the status of a paralegal entity with uncontrollable power.
In other words, we are dealing with the official creation of a structure similar to pyramid schemes, supported by law and justified as "economic development".
In this scheme built with precision to absorb deposits, favor groups connected to power, and provide unilateral guarantees, the Albanian government is selling risk as an opportunity, while citizens and businesses will remain, once again, victims of an adventure that could end in the financial collapse that has been warned about./ Pamphlet
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