Tirana, July 17, 2008

The credit agreement for the secondary and Local Roads, was officially ratified by the Albanian Parliament in a parliamentary session. The agreement passed earlier this week in three Parliamentary Committees (Economy and Finance, Law, and Production Activities). The committees were supported with technical support by the ADF for the discussion of the agreement. 

The committees passed the agreement with a general consensus. There were some comments and questions from the Deputy Chairman of the Committee of Economy and Finance Mr. Arben Malaj regarding technical issues such as costs of Technical Assistance, Supervision and operational costs; provisions about the maintenance of roads etc. Explanations were given even on questions about the project selections.

The commissions were informed about the public consultation process that leaded to the selection of evaluation criteria, the information campaign for the secondary and local roads, including the publication of the selected projects at ADF’s official website.

After the discussions on the parliamentary commissions, the project passed yesterday at the plenary session without any further comment or question. The voting for this agreement was unanimous.