Finding itself on the brink of a forewarned energy crisis, our country has been suffering from ongoing abuse in the electricity sector for some time now. Euronews Albania’s weekly documentary series, Unpublished joined a State Police and OSHEE (System Operator of Electric Energy Distribution) joint operation on the ground, to find out exactly how citizens take advantage of the loopholes in the system.
Unpublished decided to follow an OSHEE inspection team in the city of Shkoder, which is one of the cities reporting the highest level of energy theft.
“Within 3 weeks, we have been able to submit around 194 proceedings, 87 of which are being followed up by the District Prosecution in Shkoder and others are still in process,” – said Armand Zhuka, head of OSSH in Shkoder.
Many consumers find ways to dodge paying for their electricity bills, be it through illegally meddling with their energy meters, connecting to a second supply line, bribing, etc.
The largest thieves of electricity are families and businesses. It’s been more than 5 years that this type of illegal activity has intensified reaching record levels and contributing to significant losses to both OSSHEE and the State Budget.
‘From 2020-2021, we have identified around 1500 cases, and charges have been pressed on 230-240 consumers,” – said Ermal Murati, Chief of Scaling Department at OSSH.
“We have billed or emitted around 700 million LEK in the past 2 years in financial repercussions,” – said Murati.
According to data provided by OSSHEE, electricity theft is currently at 20%, compared to 45% back in 2013, when the reform was first implemented.
Unfortunately, OSHEE employees are often the ones responsible for violations and energy theft. In several cases, they tolerate theft in exchange for bribes, but in other instances, they are themselves the abusers. In fact, there have been cases of arrests of former staff found guilty of abuse.
There have been numerous arrests connected to electricity theft but this doesn’t seem to have any effect on the number of those that continue to abuse the system.
“In the last 9 months, we have received 261 new cases connected to electricity theft, where 271 citizens have been implicated, 81 of whom are currently under arrest and the others are being prosecuted,” – said Josif Shtembari, Chief of the Private Property Crimes Sector.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
