The newly-built residential neighbourhood in the administrative unit of Baldushk, Tirana, is ready to welcome back 28 more quake-affected families in the brand new homes built from scratch in an already urbanized area, offering all the needed services to the community. The new residential area has been completed with the public infrastructure, streets, sidewalks and parking lots, including also a recreational area for the local community.

The new residential neighbourhood marks successful completion of the post-earthquake reconstruction process in Baldushk. Prime Minister Edi Rama joined a ceremony with local residents in Baldushk and visited some of the new homes, wishing the benefiting families for a fresh start in their lives.

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Good evening and thank you very much for your hospitality!

It is absolutely a beautiful day for you or a beautiful evening, more precisely, and it is certainly with great pleasure that I could join this ceremony together with Erion to celebrate the completion of a process that hasn’t been easy at all.

Major investment projects have been implemented and these projects have progressed at different rates, because their context has been different too. However, it is really a pleasure that the post-earthquake reconstruction programme fully completes on the eve of the year-end holidays here in the administrative unit of Baldushk, where the quake-affected families will now celebrate the New Year in their own new homes, including the families that have already moved into their homes previously.

It is also a great pleasure that these very tangible evidence as these new houses are – and they are not photographs or video footage, but real houses – clearly show what we have pledged on the very onset that all the families that lost their homes due to the devastating earthquake will be housed in stronger, more resilient and more beautiful homes and, most importantly, they will benefit new housing totally for free and without having to pay a single cent to the state.

This is the first-ever reconstruction programme in Europe – and by Europe I mean developed countries like Italy, as well as equally developed countries like Greece and Turkey and other nations that have been hit by devastating earthquakes – but like nowhere else, this is the first-ever reconstruction programme where the affected families are granted housing totally for free and without any financial burden, unlike in other countries, where the residents are asked to apply for a soft bank loan in exchange of a house. Nobody has been asked to apply for a bank loan whatsoever! These new homes are now yours. They are real estate now owned by all the benefiting families that can do whatever they wish to do with them. In other words, they can sell and rent out these houses.

On the other hand, I would like to once again underline something. The media often reports half truths that happen to be the biggest lies, offering images of families reportedly homeless and allegedly abandoned by everyone. I tell you, there is not a single family that has been abandoned by us. They are all lies. There is not a single quake-affected family that has not been granted the rental bonus since the very beginning.

In the meantime, a number of these families have made their own choice, as many of them have declined to rent a house and instead they have joined their relatives and it is up to them to do so. However, the government has paid out the rental bonus to the very day they have moved into their new homes.

The same goes for those who reject and stage absurd and incomprehensive resistance. I can’t understand how one wishes to continue living in that residential building that was demolished most recently and what are these people who supposedly are defending the affected residents, although it is clear that the building has sustained severe structural damages and poses a deadly threat to the citizens’ lives.

In the meantime, all these families that have been granted the rental bonus are now all provided a new house or apartment totally for free.

In the meantime, throughout the ongoing reconstruction process we have clearly demonstrated that we don’t distinguish among the leftist or right wing supporters when it comes to the plight of Albanian citizens when facing natural disasters. Instead we look everyone in the eye and do what we are tasked with doing.

Therefore, I would like to assure everyone that no matter whether each and every one of you like what we do at the very first moment, everyone will eventually be satisfied with the end result, just like it is the case with all the affected residents in Kurbin municipality.

We keep working in Laç or Kurbin and we will keep doing so until the town is completely transformed like never before, like nobody would have dreamed about it.

Because, just like everywhere else, they are Albanians.

So, I would invite everyone not to worry. I do of course understand that people are worried, some are reluctant, but I would like to assure everyone that we won’t cease working until the last affected family moves into the new home, regardless of whom they vote for and regardless of whether they protest. No Albanian family has been abandoned and denied the dignity and the respect they deserve.

Thank you very much everyone and may you all enjoy your new homes.

Thank you very much!