Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at Mayor and Tirana city council swearing-in ceremony:
Honourable representatives of the capital in the city council!
Honourable attending MPs!
Honourable Mayor!
I wish you all every success in running Tirana over the next four years!
I also wish that while exercising this new mandate, you be always aware of the extraordinary burden you have to bear as a result of a completely unusual election process!
The main opposition’s absence in this capital’s Assembly weighs more than normally heavily with your commitment, dedication, judgement and decision-making process.
I hope you will best grasp this fact and wish you will find strength in each step you take to boost your dedication, as well as transparency in your decisions!
I am looking forward to seeing you not to consider the new opposition representatives in this Assembly of yours based on their small number, but with the good will and desire to listen and heed their voice and earn any positive contribution towards doing the best as part of the shared work and commitment of this honourable council.
The previous city council has usually been hostage to political conflict and has often been blocked as a result of political orders sent from outside this hall. This has not aided decision-making and has generally hampered the resolution of issues requiring the approval of a qualified majority in the Council. But, be careful, it would be equally damaging if today’s council numbers would eliminate debate in this council and lead to decision-making to the detriment of convincing argumentation of decisions and increased transparency in their decision-making.
None of the representatives in the new governing majority in Tirana and in any other municipality across Albania should forget that citizens in Tirana and every other local government unit all over the country on June 30 voted for the right, and not merely for the left. Bearing this essential truth of June 30 in mind should guide us in our daily work and impose on us the need to work hard, not for one party alone, but for everyone indiscriminately.
This is a tremendous challenge, quite easy to admit rather than to win it in the ground of a new political reality, where it is a lot easier for everyone to plunge into the hole of self-sufficiency and complacency than climbing the ladder up towards building a new, closer, fresh, and more reciprocal relationship with the people, with every community and every citizen without exception.
Starting today, I would like to urge you design a new communication and commitment plan with various community and with every local government unit, develop a new collective and individual responsibility as representatives of the community and local government units in whole big Municipality of Tirana and implement in this small Council a calendar of increased contacts with people in every territory, comparatively to the past 4-year term in office, when they say that the Mayor bore the whole burden of contact and communication.
The one we open today should be a new phase for our co-governance with the ordinary citizens too. We will soon establish the civic debate forums in every borough as guaranteed communication spaces with elected local government representatives, MPs and the government across every community and every citizen who wish to participate and have their say.
First of all, the city council members should make sure that not only these forums convene at least once a month, but also forward to every ministry, or other relevant institutions, and to the city council every problem and proposal by any MP, citizen, groups of interest, small and big business representatives.
Listening to the ordinary citizens, creating new communication bridges with them, and commitment to making them a real and inseparable part of the government should be top priority for each and every one of us, this city council and every other city council across the country.
To me it is unacceptable – and so it must be for all of you – that the contribution of the city council members is limited to the Council or relevant committee meetings only. From now on, it is both pointless and unjustifiable that there could be city council members who do not know every inch of their constituency where they have requested the vote, do not know every family in the constituency they have covered in the election, and fail to become a point of reference for every single resident who need to get in touch with their municipal representatives.
I am looking forward to seeing this Council’s new communication and commitment to the community plan be materialized, making sure at the same time that every MP and cabinet member, including me, actively participate in the efforts to support you, every community, family and resident.
The government and Tirana municipality have worked very good together over the past four years, yet there is a lot more room for improvement and more room to work a lot better in the coming years. The same is true for many other municipalities across the country during the previous mandate and should apply to this new 4-year term for each municipality.
Tirana municipality’s performance to date has been absolutely positive, but the needs are mounting and the citizens’ expectations from this municipality are much higher than the many accomplishments achieved so far. Although what has been done cannot be undone, it is not wrong, quite the contrary, it is necessary not to forget and remind everyone of what it was like when we took over four years ago.
Drawing comparison between the Tirana we inherited and the city we have today would be something lethal to those who reduced the capital into a lamentable state just four years ago. However, this is not the reason why this comparison should be made. The reason is that by constantly making such a comparison we earn the necessary credits and the citizens’ trust to do much more without allowing the daily slur of accusations, slander, fabrication weaken the relation of the majority of people with us and cast a shadow over our relationship with all people.
Let me start with the so-called oligarchs, this country’s wealthy people whose names are repeatedly mentioned by our main desperate opposition in its continued effort to slander continuously hoping that something will turn out to be true.
The construction sector is usually the preferred target of their mudslinging, with – as it has always been the case – every construction allegedly being linked to a supposed wrongdoing and every tower that could be built is an inferno.
How much these so-called oligarchs used to pay to the municipality coffers to receive a construction permit?
Only 4% of the sale price.
How much do they pay today?
8% of the sale price. So, we have doubled the tax on those to whom we allegedly and supposedly serve.
What was the contribution of the tax on construction sector to the municipal budget and the city’s development when the today’s mudslingers were administrators of the yesterday’s Tirana?
The figure is quite interesting. In 2014, Lulzim Basha signed the permits for some 618 000 square meters of new constructions and the municipal budget collected only EUR 11 million in revenue from the tax on construction. While after their departure from Tirana’s administration in 2018, Erjon Veliaj signed permits for some 515 000 square meters of constructions, collecting EUR 52 million. So, with 132,000 square meters less in construction permits, the municipality collected five times more in tax from builders.
This factual comparison speaks for itself, just like do the figures as a result of a higher tax rate we have levied on those wealthier, including the so-called oligarchs, who, if we are to refer to the definition of the word itself then they are not oligarchs at all. By imposing higher tax rates on the wealthy people during our first 4-year term in office, we have managed to provide soft loans to over 1000 people for housing compared to zero loans provided by the today’s mudslingers, 830 rental bonuses compared to just 89, or 10 times higher compared to their 4-year term. We have provided 120 apartments to the Roma community families. This is only about housing program.
But the incomparable increase in the public investment volume in Tirana over the past four years, apart from the serious assistance the central government has provided to the municipality of Tirana, is also linked to the increased taxation on those wealthier, as well as better tax management in the capital city. Figures speak for themselves. Facts speak for themselves. However, we should also speak up so that these figures and facts are not covered in the mud of slanders and the daily dust of defamations in TV stations and web portals.
As for the towers, let’s count them first, because the towers being built with the mud of slanders from our media and political scene that our concern that their defamations turn into high-rise buildings in the people’s perception is not inappropriate.
I myself see only two functioning high-rise towers, Hotel Plaza and Aba Center, the permits for construction of which have been issued a decade ago. There are two other towers still under construction, one near the Bank of Albania building being under construction for more over a decade, and the other one is the new stadium’s tower. Just four towers, but 4 million accusations and defamations for the apocalyptical tower phenomenon in Tirana.
These four towers are of course sufficiently decent for Tirana, just like any other high-rise that will be built certainly up to the same architectural and construction standards and building such structures shout be a reason to visit the European Tirana we want for the future generations.
This is another significant comparison! The failed former mayor who is seeking to rise and take over as prime minister after a series of consecutive elections defeats gave 880,000 square meters of construction on just 85 building permits. While the current Socialist mayor, who officially starts his second mayoral term today, signed 100 construction permits to build 130 square meters less construction.
Now, can you tell me who is the one serving to the oligarchs and the wealthy people? The former mayor who issued permits for major construction projects to a handful of people, or the current mayor who issued permits for much smaller projects to a larger group of builders and of course to a larger number of benefiting citizens?
The answer is clear, or just like as the old saying goes: ‘it takes one to know one.” After all, this is completely idle talks, while our work and our deeds should speak for themselves once we are no longer in office.
Look how the new national stadium, still under construction and yet to be handed over to the public, has silenced the mudslingers. Look how the new stadium has eliminated any potential suspicion over the right decision we made to raze down the old derelict stadium and build over that ruin of shame a personification and embodiment of our ambition for Tirana and European Albania.
It will definitely be the most beautiful and most functional stadium in our region and one of the Europe’s most beautiful arenas, just like the Skanderbeg Square turned out to be after undergoing the renovation project, although the capital’s main square had been previously cursed, blocked and deformed beyond recognition on behalf of the imaginary preservation of a tradition still existing only in their narrow minds and works as a word only to excuse their path of narrow reasoning, but that it has now been praised and awarded the Barcelona’s prestigious European prize as the most beautiful public space built in Europe in 2017. It narrowly failed to win the Van der Rohe Award, the world’s leading prize for contemporary architecture despite being selected as one of the five finalists.
However, I am convinced the same will happen with the new National Theatre, whose born after so many wasted decades under the degrading shadow of the old theatre building’s ugliness would put an end to the rivers of madness and evilness that franticly flow and pour into our face whenever such debate opens.
I don’t want to talk about this topic further which is currently high on the agenda due to our rivals’ desperate need to stage a new act of despair following the desperate end of the epilogue of their revolution of depressing imagination on June 30th. But it’s the right place to state that, first, unlike what slanders they fabricate on daily basis, not a single square centimetre of land within today’s theatre site will be used for anything but the new theatre building. So it is completely untrue that the site where the old theatre stands today would be granted to the private entrepreneur. Not even a square centimetre.
Second, the Tirana municipality-owned land site that will be given to the private company to develop a construction project is currently a scandalous parking space and dumpsite for every kind of waste of the former municipal décor entity. The site lies behind the theatre’s surrounding wall. I would lie you that at some point you all visit and inspect the site and since those most passionate individuals or groups about this debate have never taken the trouble to take their cameras and microphone and see what lies behind that wall, show to Tirana and every Albanian citizen that it is exactly that barren land site that will be granted to private company in exchange of constructing the new National Theatre building, whose construction costs are unaffordable for the state and the municipality’s budged combined.
Third, converging the public and private interest in the case in question is almost an ideal one both for the government and the municipality, because it is all about a public-private-partnership contract that will cost taxpayers absolutely not a single cent, because the public, the city, our country and our nation, as well as the stage actors and the theatre community will eventually benefit a new modern theatre, aesthetically and functionally up to the highest modern standards. The development of the dead area behind the current site of the national theatre will bring more life to Tirana with another contemporary quality construction, cleaning and lighting yet another bleak and infected part in urban landscape terms.
Fourth, and this is worth emphasizing, by demolishing the old building we are not destroying any architectural value similar to other Italy-era buildings and it could not be us the ones to stand accused of being indifferent to this part of the city. On the contrary, it is our merit only that this part of Tirana’s cultural heritage, including the ministries complex, has finally emerged from the pitch-black pit it had plunged into at the end of the nineties.
Even if we would have wanted to preserve and restore the today’s theatre building, that would have been not only almost impossible, but also futile and absurd. It is almost impossible because the building’s construction material has a limited and fairly short shelf life and it is not a traditional construction material, a material for temporary structures used by the Italian army to build the post-work entertainment complex, and is such it is not recoverable and totally absurd since that derelict building, in addition to having no value to be inherited for generations, it even has not sufficient space to function as a national theatre, meet the conditions for a national theatre troupe and the theatre lovers.
As for those who are used to tricks and see tricks behind any idea and development project, it is worth telling that if we were to consider the idea of preserving the existing national theatre building, not by restoring it, but by tearing it down and reconstructing it identically from scratch, just it is sometimes the case of the landmark monuments, but this time by using sustainable materials, this would cost much less to the private entrepreneur. By doing so he would have certainly earned also the approval of the minority of people who keep protesting in the name of some imaginary values and in the name of a nostalgia they have developed through the transfer of feelings from those who still feel nostalgic, yet wanting a new theatre building and would have spared us of the mud we are being thrown on our face and the energies we are wasting to pave the way to our idea. So it would be in many aspects much easier at the moment, but completely unjust for the future and the coming generations.
In this case too, we have opted for the hard way as we haven’t been elected and voted by the citizens to infringe upon the future and our children. Just like we did on June 30, in the case of theatre and other tremendous challenges to build the Albania we want for our children, we are not going to compromise the future so that we can avoid the troubles and headaches of today. It would have been of course great if we all were to agree on June 30, as well as on the theatre, the stadium, the towers, and other challenges, including the children’s playground park on the hills of the Artificial Lake, for decisions to be made in the light of the future, but we have been elected neither to agree with everyone nor to expect agreement with everyone. We have been voted to govern, make decisions, and move our community and the country forward. The future cannot be negotiated just for the sake of comfort of staying in power and power is a tool to achieve goals for the future and not an end to justify the means to prolong the term in office.
While preparing this address, I was checking facts, figures, accomplishments and performance of the Tirana Municipality over the first four-year term. Any comparison with the previous four years are literally lethal to those who for years on attack us from dawn to dusk from the very same position through the disgusting mud of defamations, accusations and desperate slurs; zero new school buildings compared to five new modern schools built over past four years. Meanwhile, work is underway to construct 17 new school buildings whose projects have been designed by leading international architects up to new modern standards never achieved in the pre-university education institutions in Albania before. It is a joint government and Tirana Municipality project through a private-public-partnership contract, funded under public-private partnership, which would allow the capital to meet the standards classroom size for 30 students and eliminate the two-shift learning in schools during the next 4-year term in office.
The new 17 school buildings will be constructed within three years through private capital and investment will be settled in reasonable tranches over several years. However, the Tirana children will no longer be forced to attend the two-shift learning and will enjoy optimum conditions in schools.
Let’s go on making a comparison. Some 35 school buildings were reconstructed compared to only 5 restored by the previous mayor, 36 kindergartens and 28 nursery schools were also reconstructed compared to only 9 reconstructed previously. I am not going to provide figures on the countless roads and infrastructure projects implemented over the past four years.
But beyond all this, after all we must be true to ourselves, because only by being true to ourselves we would win praise and appreciation from the citizens. Drawing such comparisons with our rivals is just to remind people of where we started from, but it doesn’t help our ambitions to arrive where we want for the people, because we simply can’t afford to complacent to compare with them because it is like comparing the number one with zero and we should act seriously to address the problems, the woes of the people and this country, the hopes of the people who have entrusted us running the whole country and the municipalities. Modesty, respect, humbleness, hard work, patience and willingness should be the key words in order not to fall into the quagmire of arrogance, indifference, and inertia through which power, the narrow interest, subservience and complacency, nepotism and clientelism erode the foundations of a governing majority that forgets and abandons its source, the people.
The today’s Tirana, and many other cities across Albania are much better the one we had previously. But the Tirana we want and the Albania we want are not the ones we have today. Tirana we want is one with school buildings yet to be constructed, parks yet to be created, new roads yet to be paved, services yet to improve and communities that still suffer countless wounds that need to heal. All of these need and take a lot of time, hard work, patience, but above all they require communication, courtesy, good conduct and modesty. This applies to every municipality and all of us, elected representatives at every level of the people of this country, to the government and to me. We should not forget how many vicious, rude, impolite, parasitic, ordinary individuals and thieves undermine our relation with the people and the path towards our future by being on the state’s payrolls both at central and local government level and we should combat their carcinogenic presence on the daily basis being aware this evilness cannot be eliminated overnight, but on the other hand you should constantly make sure to compensate as much as we can in the eyes of everyone and not only when in front of the cameras, the consequences, the sufferings and the negative perception because of the activity of this group of individuals.
Erion and I discuss constantly Tirana’s major projects, but time flies and runs faster than we do.
The Pyramid should open to the young people of the digital applications age; The new University Campus is to be built within this mandate;
The National Theatre and the children’s theatre that should be built once the new National Theatre completes. We can no longer keep telling ourselves that we live in the capital city and be satisfied by gathering children in front of that derelict building that has already accomplished its mission as a Puppet Theatre and it may well serve as the right site for the museum of Parliament’s history;
Tirana Big Ring Road Project that extends beyond the newly built Ring Road and links to the Bregu i Lumit area;
The Olympic Park needs to be completed with its still missing part;
Mother Teresa square that needs to ultimately transform into a pedestrian area and complete with the new Academy of Arts building.
The new National Library;
The agritourism network around Tirana;
Tirana’s modern agricultural markets.
These and many other smaller projects that are exclusively municipal projects, yet very important ones, are inevitable. Beautiful designs, intelligent solutions, quality works and significant funding are needed to support all these projects. What shall we do then?
First and foremost, we will show strong commitment. We can earn the citizens’ understanding when lacking due funding, yet they would not understand us if we lack showing commitment and dedication. People may understand us when we are short of opportunities, but they would never understand us when we lack kindness. And if a day is to come, the title I would pick for the new chapter we open today for the next four years would be “Dedication” and if we were to be remembered by a sentence only by the end of the four coming years that sentence would be “Years of strong dedication.”
It is easy saying, it sounds great to ears, but it is extremely hard to accomplish. However, it is not impossible. After all, we have been elected to press ahead with challenging things. Therefore, let’s start do also this all together.
Thank you very much!
