In Albania, the parliament started today the review of the motion presented by 1/10 of the deputies, representatives of the Democratic Party, to establish the invalidity and end of the mandate of the socialist deputy Vullnet Sinaj, and to send this motion to the Constitutional Court to establish the incompatibility and end of the mandate. the mandate of the deputy Sinai.
At the meeting of the Council of Mandates, the head of the democratic parliamentary group, Gazmend Bardhi, stated that from the official data collected, it appears that according to him, companies owned or where Mr. Sinaj is a shareholder, have benefited from budget funds. Mr. Sinaj is the owner of a well-known chain of supermarkets “Big Market”, but with his election as a deputy, he has moved to a passive status, not having the right to manage companies.
According to Mr. Bardhi, during the period that Mr. Sinaj exercised the mandate of the deputy “only through 9 transactions verified by us, he benefited through his 9 companies, income from the state budget, in the total amount of 3.68 million ALL“, or approximately 37 thousand euros. The democratic representative emphasized that the passive status has not prevented the socialist deputy from receiving the company's profits according to the share quotas he owns.
The constitution prohibits a deputy from exercising other functions, as well as considers it incompatible with the mandate, the exercise of “profitable activity that originates from the wealth of the state, or of the local government, nor to acquire the wealth of these”.
Present at the meeting of the Council of Mandates, Mr. Sinaj spoke about abig farce. This is all ridiculous“, he said, explaining that of the 3.6 million that are claimed as benefits, 3.2 million are refunds received from the tax directorates for profit tax or VAT, of some companies that have been in the closing phase.so this is not money from the budget, but prepaid by the business, which was broken after them“. He also explained that only a little more than 300,000 ALL belong to the current mandate as a deputy, as the rest coincides with the period of the first mandate, 2017-2021. According to him, it is about purchases that various institutions have made in the supermarkets of his company. “It is not about tenders or concessions. They have extinguished and bought consumer goods in the supermarket, and the cashier cannot know who and what the buyer represents“, he underlined.
But Mr. Bardhi responded by emphasizing that “for the constitution it doesn't matter how much money he gets. 0.5 lek is enough and you are in the conditions of incompatibility of the mandate”.
The meeting of the Council will continue with another session in a few days, since deputy Sinaj said that he needs time to examine the documentation, and to take a position from a legal point of view.
