{"id":14547,"date":"2023-09-12T18:25:40","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T18:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amfora.al\/?p=14547"},"modified":"2023-09-12T18:25:41","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T18:25:41","slug":"ipard-file-returns-to-spak-nisma-thurje-seeks-the-investigation-of-state-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amfora.al\/en\/ipard-file-returns-to-spak-nisma-thurje-seeks-the-investigation-of-state-officials\/","title":{"rendered":"IPARD file returns to SPAK, \u2018Nisma Thurje\u2019 seeks the investigation of state officials"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Representatives of the \u2018Nisma Thurje\u2019 (‘Hashtag Initiative’) have filed criminal charges to SPAK for the officials of the Agency of Agriculture (AZHBR) and the former Minister of Agriculture Frida Krifca over suspicion of abuse of office and corruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToday, we filed at SPAK criminal charges regarding the abuses with the AZHBR funds, IPARD funds, and other funds of national support,\u201d declared Endri Shabani to the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are seeking from SPAK today to investigate the former Minister of Agriculture, the director of AZHBR as well as the decision-making chain, who are responsible for that decision that the EU took for the very first time against Albania, that of excluding the country from EU funds,\u201d elaborated Shabani.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Nisma Thurje\u2019 representatives sent to the Special Prosecution\u2019s Office among others information that SPAK \u201chad moved away from themselves a long time ago.\u201d The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) had earlier submitted a report to the Special Prosecution\u2019s Office (SPAK).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OLAF had earlier filed their charges in June 2020 and two years later SPAK declared it was incompetent to adjudicate it hence passing the file to Tirana\u2019s Prosecution\u2019s Office which informed Amfora Media that, \u201ccriminal charges remain at the early phase of investigation without a name of perpetrator registered in the charges.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCriminal charges no. 7471, of 2022 were registered for the criminal offenses \u2018Falsification of documents\u2019 and \u2018Abuse of office\u2019, stipulated in articles 186 and 248 of the Criminal Code,\u201d previously informed the Tirana Prosecution\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, the Agriculture and Rural Development Agency (AZHBR) in Albania was assigned by the IPARD II Program, to distribute grants through a budget of 94.6 million euros, 71 million of which were a contribution of the European Commission and 23.6 million euros were the national contribution of the Albanian state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EU Office in Tirana earlier confirmed<\/a> suspicions of corruption with its funds for Albanian agriculture on July 19. OLAF submitted the European Commission several findings which forced the Commission to suspend funds, until the final assessment report from OLAF\u2019s investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Minister of Agriculture, Frida Krifca, led the Agriculture and Rural Development Agency (AZHBR) from July 2017-September 2021 until she was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. EU\u2019s investigation was focused on the period she led AHZBR, which coincided with the second phase of the program, in 2014-2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amfora Media uncovered<\/a> in a previous investigation how the IPARD program had turned into an \u201cexclusive club\u201d for big companies which had ties with politics and crime. Recently opened businesses as well as other ones without any experience in agriculture, were exposed in some cases, creating schemes where they profited as a family or committed fraud by changing investments\u2019 destination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Representatives of the \u2018Nisma Thurje\u2019 (Hashtag Initiative) have filed criminal charges to SPAK against officials of the Agency of Agriculture (AZHBR) and the former Minister of Agriculture Frida Krifca over suspicion of abuse of office and corruption. This is the second time that the IPARD program officially goes to SPAK, which previously claimed it was incompetent to investigate the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4305],"tags":[4735,5110,4550,4913,4705,4696,4707,4701,4699,4702,5109,4709,4693,4700,4736,4703,4704,4694,4695,4734,4706,5111,5112,4683,4697,4692,5113,4398,5114,4710,4708,5115],"class_list":["post-14547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-abuzim-ipard-2","tag-agjencia-per-zhvillim-bujqesor-dhe-rural-azhbr-2","tag-amfora-al-3","tag-azhbr","tag-azhbr-abuse","tag-azhbr-abuzim-2","tag-azhbr-corruption","tag-azhbr-corruption-albania","tag-azhbr-korrupsion-2","tag-azhbr-korrupsion-shqiperi-2","tag-dosja-e-ipard-2","tag-european-anti-fraud-office-olaf","tag-european-commission-corruption-albania","tag-european-union-office-in-tirana","tag-frida-krifca-2","tag-ipard-abuses-albania","tag-ipard-abuzime-shqiperi-2","tag-ipard-albania","tag-ipard-ii-program","tag-ipard-korrupsion-2","tag-ipard-shqiperi-2","tag-ipard-spak-2","tag-ish-ministrja-e-bujqesise-frida-krifca-2","tag-journalism-fund","tag-journalism-fund-albania-2","tag-komisioni-evropian-korrupsion-shqiperi-2","tag-korrupsion-shqiperi-2","tag-media-amfora-2","tag-nisma-thurje-2","tag-programi-ipard-ii-2","tag-zyra-e-bashkimit-evropian-ne-tirane-2","tag-zyra-evropiane-kunder-mashtrimit-olafspak-nisma-thurje"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"formatted_date":"12 September 2023","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amfora.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amfora.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amfora.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amfora.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amfora.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14547"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/amfora.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15760,"href":"https:\/\/amfora.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14547\/revisions\/15760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amfora.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amfora.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amfora.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amfora.al\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}