Quality of Infrastructure Investments Remains Low, IMF Says

TIRANA, July 26

The International Monetary (IMF) ranks Albania second last in a list of 40 countries regarding the quality of infrastructure investments even though billions of Euros from taxpayer’s money were paid for public investments, Top Channel reported referring to a report by IMF.
According to the IMF, the Albanian government spent an annual average of 5.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over 2005-2016 period mostly on roads, sea ports and other public works.
This fact ranks Albania among the five countries with the highest level of capital expenditure for the last decade. However, it wasn’t enough to provide infrastructure comparable to similar economies.
According to IMF, Albania ranks penultimate in the list of 40 countries and the last in the list is Rwanda. All the other countries, including similar economies such as Serbia and Macedonia, have better roads, ports, railways, and energy infrastructure, even though they spend less.
IMF says that low investments efficiency is the reason why the high figures paid by Albanian taxpayers don’t result in the expected improvement of infrastructure.
In the meantime, the World Bank says that about 30percent of funds spent on public projects are misused due to corruption or projects delay.

News Source: TCh