The Weakest Link of Kosovo's Democracy - KFOS

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employed at the airport.
Task Force received testimonies from people who had paid bribes. The bribes were
paid to middlemen employed at the airport and who were linked to ex MD Ioan Woollett
and the main part of his co-managers. Most of them are still working at the airport.
One of the managers, Adem Gashi, is said to have employed some family members.
The head of security, who ironically is also head of the union, Sylejman Zeneli, according
to the workers interviewed, has employed some 17 “close” persons.
- One other irregularity, which has been re-confirmed from many
sources, is the discriminating way in which expropriation of land has
been carried out. In some cases the agreement has been imposed
upon the landowner. In other cases owners have received counter
bids as high as twenty times the market value.
One case, which was also reporter in the daily papers, was the compensation that the
regional Office of KTA offered to ex-minister Rexhep Osmani. He received industrial
land in Fushe Kosove worth at least twenty times the value of his expropriated land.
Another flagrant case is the agreement with the owner Rexhep Zeka, who was even
permitted to build a hotel in violation of the airport master plan.
Indifference of the Airport Board of Directors
In spite of the fact the cases presented by Task Force are quite worrying, not only
considering the number of suspected criminal cases but also their seriousness, today’s
Airport management continues to show no willingness to fight this situation. To the
contrary they have voiced promises or have done things just to give the impression
that in fact they are doing something about it.
A statement by the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Public Enterprises at KTA,
Mr Ilir Salihu, after the UN report was published was rather an encouragement for
continued irregularities. In a press conference Mr Salihu said that in severe cases they
would send a letter of warning. This shows that he had no plan to take usual administrative
measures, not even in serious cases.
Be it as it may, he admitted that there have been breaches of law, but, as has been
reported in the daily papers, he tried to explain this by stating that most of the reports
cover the period when Kosovo was in a reconstruction period and when the Airport had
no system for internal control.
It is not very likely that the irregularities will be fought by the present board members
of the Airport. Many facts show that the brother of the Chairman of the Board, Mr. Salihu,
was employed at the Airport in 2003 without competition. Also, during the period
when he was deputy director of the regional Office of KTA in Prishtina the ex-minister
of education, Rexhep Osmani, was granted the industrial area in Fushe Kosove in exchange
for expropriated land at the airport.
Another reason often heard from the leaders of KTA and from the Board of Directors at
the airport for not taking adequate measures against irregularities after the Task Force
The Weakest Link of Kosovo’s Democracy
forum 2015