Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the distribution of legalization permits in Cakran of Fier:
Before arriving here I toured the sites of Urban Renaissance in Fier. The Mayor told me that every time a new site is opened and the news is posted on FB, there are reactions from people who are looking forward to a site where they live. This is quite natural, as it is quite natural that today as we speak, many residents in the district of Fier and residents all over Albania ask “when is it going to happen here also?”
What we should take into consideration is that these are real works, these are serious works that will take their time and cannot be done in the twinkling of an eye. Suffice it to mention that here in Cakran only 3 legalizations were made in 8 years. Whereas today, in just one day, we made 1001 legalizations. Suffice it to mention that 1274 legalizations were made in the 8 years in power by those who are today in the tent. Whereas 11.200 legalizations have been made in 3 years, since the reorganized institution of ALUIZNI became operational. Here in Cakran 3 legalizations were made in 8 years, and 1001 legalizations in one day, so you do the maths. And all those legalizations have been made at the expenses of the people, at the expenses of the community most of the time. Buildings were legalized on Gjanice. The vast majority of those legalizations made by the power of the “tent” were for cafeterias, hotels, motels, restaurants, swimming pools, warehouses, trampolines, therefore for business. Most of them were legalizations which should have never been made, in parks, in archaeological areas, on collectors, on national and local infrastructure, the consequence of which were the skyrocketing costs to rebuild all the occupied and legalized areas. We will not accept that some people remain eternal owners of such areas.
We are committed to transform Gjanicë in a space that is an added value for the city, in a park for the city, and we will level all those buildings. But if Sali, Shaban and all those in the tent hadn’t legalized them, we wouldn’t have to pay from the state coffers to expropriate them. Skyrocketing costs! We have calculated the costs for the expropriation of the buildings legalized in Gjanice, and it is as much as the money we need to build all secondary roads in the neighbourhoods in Fier.
It’s terrible how the legalization process turned into a process of abuse. I will tell you one figure that shows how different these processes are. Of 11 thousand and some hundred legalizations that have been made throughout Fier, 93% are homes, they are owned by families who have sacrificed, have saved the money earned with their hard work in immigration to build a house. Of the remaining 7%, the vast majority are legalized buildings for agricultural purposes.
You are all witnesses that the legalization process was a big deal until yesterday, and whether you paid for them on the table or under the table, you still risked not to get anything. But now you are witnesses of the fact that the whole procedure and the process are for free. You are witnesses that ALUIZNI came to your homes, and I thank them and the director of ALUIZNI in Fier, for their exemplary work. They helped you fill in all the paperwork, and now they’re handing the certificates over to you.
There are many people who say that the Prime Minister goes on TV and issues certificates. We’re not doing this to go on TV and issue certificates. We’re doing this to communicate and to explain many aspects of this process because people need to know them.
People need to know what colossal damages the previous government has caused to this country, with this process only, what bill they left to our children, as this is the money of our children, this is the money for day cares and schools. It is a bill also to the grandparents, as this is their money. This is the money for hospitals and social care, but we have to use it over the years to expropriate those owners and to demolish the buildings that are suffocating our cities, just like those buildings that were suffocating the University of Tirana.
You saw what did to the stadium those who talk about the values, about history, about heritage and about everything every time we build something new. 100 metres away from the stadium and close to the university, they had legalized all those horrible buildings that were used to sell meatballs or as clubs, right in the heart of the park. And not only nobody told them anything back then, but today they are raising their voice just as they do for the freedom of choice, and for democracy.
They’ve pinned down the tent there, just like they did with the buildings in Gjanice. They used and abused, and became owners right in the heart of Fier, in the most unfair way by stealing people their common property, suffocating them, and by transforming a miracle which a city is fortunate to have, a river crossing it, into a canal of waste water.
This is how they want to build democracy. They put a tent in the middle of the boulevard and say “Occupied land”. They say, either our way or no way, no elections, no freedom, no democracy, nothing because we are the freedom, we are democracy, we are everything.
They are some poor people who are to be pitied, but at the same time they are also a reason for everybody, both socialists and democrats, to feel revolted, all the honest people who go to trials and are charged an arm and a leg by judges, prosecutors whom the others are trying to keep in their positions at all costs in order to save themselves from justice.
They’ve closed themselves in the tent because they are afraid of justice. They don’t want elections because they don’t want the Socialist Party to attend them as they know very well what people think about our work, and the support they will give to our party.
I’m sorry, for there are some of the DP’s here. This is the first time I have mentioned the party here, but I want to tell all democrats not to worry because we’re here for you. We legalized your homes, and we will take care of you.
Let’s come all together because Albanians cannot be locked down in a tent. Albania must be a part of the European Union. Albania cannot go back to the time of the tents, kiosks and informal buildings. Democracy in Albania is neither Gjanica nor the Rinia Park in Tirana, or the other public spaces in Albania that were occupied in the time of the Sali the first.
