Second Environmental Performance Review of Albania

Chapter 2: Compliance and enforcement mechanisms27Table 2.2: Inspections having financial consequences for the operatorYear Number of inspections Activities subject to controland administrativesanctions2003 36 fuel stations, inert materials production line, footwear production, stonequarry, poultry farming, concrete production, auto repair shop and carwash2004 16 sponge productions, mechanical work, dairy products, forest exploitation,poultry farming, munitions dismantling, river quarry, oil refining, electricityproduction, footwear production, fuel stations2005 106 similar to those described above, most for river quarry and fractions plantsfor inert materials2006 106 similar to those described above2007 83 similar to those described above and also bakery, dough products, sewageand soil transport, soil dumping, road reconstruction, urban waste cleaning,multifunctional buildings, shrimp farming2008 126 natural resource exploitation activities, urban waste cleaning, industrialactivities2009 99 working in “restricted area”, bad management of hospital waste, not givingdata for monitoring and noise exceeding the norms in coffee bars andrestaurants2010 265 similar to those described above including aquaculture cultivation2011 (Jan.-Sept.) 134 similar to those described aboveSource: Ministry of Environment, Forests and Water Administration, 2011.With its one-stop-shop services, the NLC is theauthority where all applications for licences must bemade; no application shall be submitted to anotherinstitution even if it is the competent authority forapproving the licence. The necessary legislation andregulations were approved in order to legitimate andempower the NLC in its role in the licensing process.The 2009 Law on Licences, Authorizations, andPermits, No. 1008, provides the basic principles ofpermitting, which apply also to environmentalpermitting. According to the written rules, which arenot fully applied in practice, the NLC’s functions areto:• Handle licensing and permitting applicationprocedures, compliant with the Law No. 10081;• Keep and administer the National Registry ofLicences and Permits;• Provide free public access, as per provisions ofthe Law;• Inform and advise applicants and the public atlarge on licensing and permitting criteria.Since October 2009, all applications forenvironmental permissions have been submitted toNLC. At present it has 10 functioning regionaloffices. NLC checks documents according to theproject characteristics, then transfers the applicationsto MoEFWA for review and final decision. To enableelectronic communication with NLC, a specificprogramme was built and installed in each institutionwith licensing competence, although this is onlyworking partially, and only in Tirana. It cannot workwithin the regional structures because they have nocomputers and no access to the internet.Under the pressures of NLC timeframes and anenormous volume of applications (approximately1,100 cases in 2010), the environmentaladministration is struggling to meet the tight approvaltimeframe and ensure quality in the environmentalpermitting process. The environmental permittingprocedure in Albania may be divided into threephases:Phase I: Preparation of the necessarydocumentation by the project developerIn this stage the developer is assisted by its projectteam to prepare the technical documentationnecessary for an application for an environmentalpermission. The 2010 Instruction on the NecessaryDocuments Needed when Applying for anEnvironmental Permit, No. 2, provides a set ofnecessary documentation, which is completed andsubmitted to NLC by the project developer.Phase II: Administration of the applicationprocedure by NLCIt is regulated in accordance with specific functionallegislation and does not interfere with technicallegislation related to a specific licence or permission.