Alliance for the Albanians today demanded the resignation of the Deputy Prime Minister Artan Grubi and the director of the State Roads JP Eyup Rustemi as responsible for the tender for the supervision of the construction of corridors 8 and 10 which was won by a company with Russian capital.

- The consortium selected for this tender was led by the IGH Institute based in Zagreb, and owned by Russian oligarchs close to the government of Vladimir Putin and the Russian FSB. Who is behind the consortium led by the IGH Institute? A simple visit to the company's website is enough to see that the company's supervisory board consists of three Russian citizens: Sergey Gliadelkin, Marian Tkach and Igor Tkach. The chairman of the board of directors is Robert Petrosian, another individual originally from the former USSR, educated in Uzbekistan and with many years of experience in leading Russian companies. These data are confirmed by the Croatian Court Register, also publicly available. More detailed investigations in the Croatian media show that Sergej Gliadelkin, Marian and Igor Tkach were at the center of several corruption scandals in Croatia involving senior government officials in connection with the purchase of properties in Zagreb, southern France and Geneva, AA claims.

The alliance discovers that international sources contain even more disturbing information about these Russian oligarchs.

- The American think-tank Atlantic Council refers to Sergei Gliadelkin as an FSB man, successor to the KGB. According to the Atlantic Council, Gliadelkin amassed his wealth under the protection of Russia's richest woman, Yelena Baturina, close to Putin and wife of former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhov. Furthermore, the Atlantic Council says that Gliadelkin is close to Putin's inner circle and is an associate of Igor Chaika, the son of Yury Chaika, Putin's former prosecutor general. Gliadelkin's firm, Avenue Group, which is a major shareholder in the IGH Institute, is among the Russian government's main contractors. According to the Atlantic Council, Gliadelkin is part of the Kremlin's broader strategy for Russian infiltration into Europe. During our research we also discovered that Marian and Igor Tkach are Gliadelkin's cousins. Their brother Oleg Polikarpovich Tkach is a senator from Putin's party. The daughter of Oleg Tkach worked for many years as an assistant to Mikhail Mishustin, the current Prime Minister of Putin. It is also learned that Igor Tkach is a close friend of Ivan Tkachev, the head of the counterintelligence department of the FSB in the financial services, the Alliance for Albanians points out.

According to the partner party of the IGH Institute, the Veles Road Institute is a small company founded in 2021 with a deposit of 5.000 euros and for which there are no financial data.

- Its owner is Sotir Ampov, an accountant from Gevgelija known in the justice system and previously mentioned in criminal cases. From the public procurement database, it appears that this company has so far received two tenders from State Roads for the supervision of construction projects, which raises suspicions of corruption. So it is more than clear that the Kremlin and the FSB are behind Gliadelkin and the IGH Institute. Therefore, Deputy Prime Minister Hruby as Politically Responsible and Director of State Roads, Eyup Rustemi as Administratively Responsible, jeopardized, without precedent, national security by contracting the IGH Institute to supervise the work of Bechtel-Enka. If it weren't for the allies' financial sanctions against Russia, today Putin and the FSB would be sitting cross-legged on the most strategic project for the Albanians and our allies in North Macedonia and the Western Balkans, emphasizes the Alliance.

According to the party, it is really lucky that the deal failed because the IGH Institute did not deposit the bank guarantee stipulated in the deal on time, as AA says "probably due to the freezing of assets as a result of financial sanctions against Russia".

- But this does not cancel this scandal of unprecedented proportions in the circumstances in which Europe and the world find themselves. An entire system failed to detect this malicious Kremlin and FSB infiltration attempt. The Alliance for Albanians demands the immediate resignation of the above-mentioned officials and calls on the Public Prosecutor's Office to investigate the failure of the national security institutions to detect the threat from the IGH Institute and to identify those responsible for this security fiasco with corrupt characteristics, according to the Alliance.

The party emphasizes the following facts:

- The Tetovo-Qafasan and Prilep-Bitola highways will be built by the American-Turkish consortium Bechtel-Enka, with conditions determined by a special law passed by the Parliament. The public enterprise State Roads was supposed to announce a tender for supervisory and legal advisory services for the construction of new highways.

– On 28.12.2021, the public enterprise for state roads announced a tender for supervision and legal advisory services for corridors 8 and 10, with a deadline for submission of offers until 23.03.2022. Two bids were accepted, i.e. from US Hill International and one consortium led by the Zagreb-based IGH Institute.

- According to the report of the public procurement commission, only one offer was acceptable, that of the consortium led by the IGH Institute, in cooperation with the Macedonian company Veles Road Institute.

- On May 17, a decision was made to award the contract to the IGH Institute. The contract was worth 22,6 million euros without VAT and the duration of the contract was 58 months. According to information published by the Zagreb Stock Exchange, the IGH Institute participated in the contract with 8,7 million euros, while the Macedonian company Veles Road Institute with 13,8 million euros.

– The contract between State Roads and the IGH Institute was signed on August 3, but the bank guarantee of 10 percent of the total value of the contract (2,6 million euros with VAT) was not deposited in time by the IGH Institute, according to the provisions of the Law on Public Procurement. The IGH Institute requested an extension of the deadline until August 5, but again did not provide the bank guarantee.

– In this way, the contract was violated by the IGH Institute and became invalid. State roads decided to start a new procedure for the re-announcement of the tender, in accordance with the applicable laws.