“Comment is free, but facts are sacred.” — C. P. Scott, 1921.
€103 million in spending without accountability: Qëndresa Qytetare reveals university spending
Erblin Vukaj · Originally published: 20 November 2025
In this article
The findings and demands for transparency
Public university spending is once again in the spotlight after Qëndresa Qytetare today revealed the total value and number of higher education institutions’ contracts, procurements and tenders.
Today’s exhibition outside the Rectorate of the University of Tirana (UT) presented an institutional picture of a “transparency bunker”, where the lack of accountability appears to have become the norm.
Data analysed by Qëndresa Qytetare for 2025 show a pattern of financial mismanagement.
The Special Prosecution Office (SPAK) and the Supreme State Audit institution (KLSH) have uncovered hundreds of thousands of euros in public procurement abuses, while regional universities spend up to 77% of their budgets on salaries and fees alone, with no investment, no laboratories and no research.
According to the organisation’s director, Rigels Xhemollari, refusing transparency has become standard practice. At the opening of the event, he said that the University of Tirana and the University of Medicine had refused to provide even their detergent-purchase contracts, considering them “trade secrets”.
“Excuse me, how can detergent, the installation of doors or even the students’ graduation ceremony be a trade secret? Even though we have won this case in court, these universities continue to squander the opportunity to be transparent,” the head of Qëndresa Qytetare said.
Xhemollari stressed that this trend comes as SPAK this year issued 28 pre-trial measures against Agricultural University officials involved in nine procedures suspected of abuses amounting to around €900,000. At the same time, KLSH has also proposed 35 disciplinary measures for two other universities and the Academy of Sciences.
According to Qëndresa Qytetare, these measures once again show the workings and scale of corruption in universities.
“Today, the only hope is that justice institutions will investigate more deeply and continue with other cases, so attention turns to universities to see how this money is spent, where it goes, whether it produces anything tangible or whether we are dealing with corrupt tenders,” said Kolindo Vjerdha, a Qëndresa activist.
How university budgets are distributed
In total, the eight public universities spent €103 million this year, but only 4.2% went to research.
Shkodër and Korçë reach a critical level: 77% of the budget was used for salaries alone, reducing academic activity to a minimum.
Another contradiction concerns security spending. UT paid €1.65 million for guards, Elbasan around €1 million, and the Polytechnic University €842 thousand. For context, the University of Durrës spends four times less than UT, with no difference in the level of campus security.
“The university has been reduced to a unit that runs tenders and pays salaries, a kind of dead institution that is not very different, I don’t know, from a municipality or a municipal services body in a secondary city in Albania,” commented lecturer Ervin Goci.
Spending and services for students
According to Qëndresa Qytetare, the gap between spending and the services provided to students is clear.
The Polytechnic University (UPT) declared annual spending of €70 thousand on printer ink. This was considered abusive expenditure when students, such as those studying architecture, pay between €100 and €200 a month for printing outside the institution.
Several faculties report purchases of computers, laboratory materials and equipment that, according to Qëndresa Qytetare, neither students nor lecturers have ever seen.
These spending patterns suggest a lack of planning, but also raise suspicions of clientelist tendering.
“We are part of an education system that does not give us back even the basic dignity of being a student. For me, the problem is how much of this spending comes back to students?” commented Mateo Yskollari, a Qëndresa activist.
Without transparency and internal monitoring, universities risk becoming structures that merely spend on salaries and contracts, without producing knowledge, research or innovation.
Qëndresa Qytetare’s proposals
At this point, Qëndresa Qytetare called for the “U-Transparenca” portal to be rebuilt, research funding to be increased and internal auditing to be strengthened.
Xhemollari stressed that public universities are funded through citizens’ taxes and students’ fees, and therefore cannot operate through secret contracts, suspect tenders and broken lines of accountability.
“The issue is not only financial. It concerns the quality of knowledge, public trust and the future of higher education in the country,” Xhemollari emphasised.
* This article was reviewed and corrected on 8 October 2026.