Fokus reports that a businessman close to First Deputy Prime Minister Artan Grubi purchased a hotel from the Granit construction company, which then received a lucrative highway contract that Grubi has influence over.

The Granit hotel at the Popova Sapka ski resort was sold for just 55,000 EUR, a sum that won’t get you a small cabin in the resort, let alone a hotel. It was bought by Suat Alia, head of the Shkupi football club, where Grubi built his career as head of a nationalist group of football hooligans. Alia bought the hotel through a small lighting company, that operates at a loss and currently has only one employee.

At the time of the sale, Granit was negotiating the 17 million EUR contract to build a small section of the highway between Skopje and the Kosovo border. Grubi is highly influential in all highway deals, especially those on the east – west corridor 8 and the link to Kosovo. Granit badly mismanaged the project that is being built with serious delays, but instead of losing the deal, Granit eventually signed an additional contract with the Government worth 11 million EUR.

Grubi is currently in the news after his brother bought valuable commercial real estate in downtown Skopje at far below the market price.