Albanian Capital’s Mayor Splashes in Ad Spending

In the first nine months of 2014, the municipality of Tirana spent more than 20.4 million lek (€145,600) in advertising in several national daily newspapers, while all other municipalities in the country spent a total 3 million lek (€21,400) during the same period. 

In total, Albania’s main government institutions, including the Council of Ministers, ministries, the President’s office and key agencies spent a total of 31.29 million lek (€223,500) on adverts.

The municipality of Tirana, headed by the leader of the opposition Democratic Party, Lulzim Basha, accounted for 65.4 per cent of all advertising spending of governmental institutions in the print media for 2014.

The distribution of government-sponsored adverts, particularly TV adverts, was a controversial topic during the previous Democratic Party-headed government led by Sali Berisha.

Investigations by BIRN in January showed that during his eight years in power, Berisha’s government spent millions of euroin a series of advertising campaigns, with most of the money going to pro-government TV stations.

Data obtained by BIRN show that from 2009 to 2012, the Interior Ministry spent its entire TV advertising budget on a single agency linked to a pro-government media figure.

The Ministry of Interior ran six major TV advertising campaigns and produced one spot in four years for a total 85,389,780 lek (€610,000).

From 2008 to 2012, the Ministry of Interior was headed by the current Democratic Party leader, Basha – from 2009 to 2010 – and by Albania’s current President, Bujar Nishani, from 2007 to 2009 and again from 2011 to 2012.

BIRN has learned that the contracts formed part of a broad scheme to enrich pro-government media, which ran during the eight years that the Democratic Party held power.

Other institutions that were generous to companies either owned by or linked with Frangaj included the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Defence and the Police Directorate.

The Defence Ministry over two years alone awarded €580,000 in adverts to two advertising agencies linked with Frangaj, Promo Sh.p.k and Zoom Events.TV Klan also received over €427,000 from the Council of Ministers in 2008 and 2010.

Meanwhile, the police directorate awarded 198,950,000 lek (€1.4 million), to Promo in three major advertising campaigns, from 2010 to 2012.