Co-governance as new law is the title of a cycle of awareness-raising meetings that kicked off in the city of Elbasan today to discuss co-governance as a new legally binding mechanism.

At an extended meeting with local residents in Elbasan, Prime Minister Edi Rama revealed the novelties of this important law designed to relieve citizens from the burden of public administration by providing everyone full access to the public and administrative services via smart phones and computers. The new law also stipulates sanctions and consequences any public administration workers face for failure and any delays caused in delivering services to the citizens.

Prime Minister Rama said in his remarks:

Hello everyone! Thank you very much for attending this gathering. I really appreciate it as we launch a cycle of awareness-raising gatherings on a new legislation recently approved by the Albanian Parliament. For the unreasonable reason, which is now known worldwide, it has been turned back by the President of the Republic, but this simply delays for a few weeks the full entry into force of the law because the law will be approved as it is by parliament. For reasons of unreason, which is now universally known, the bill has been returned by the President of Republic for further consideration to Parliament, but such a move simply delays for a few more weeks the entry into force of the new law, which will be approved by Parliament without undergoing any changes.

The concept of co-governance, the Albania We Want platform (Shqipëriaqëduam.al ), the interactions of many citizens with this platform is not something new, I think, for many here, if not for everyone, as well as for many for those who are watching us now.

The new aspect we want to communicate and the reason why we decided to host this series of awareness-raising meetings in every region across Albania, as the law is about to enter into force, is because by turning co-governance into a legally binding mechanism, we provide citizens with an extremely important instrument at this stage of our common journey, with one of the main problems we face being the citizens’ relations with the public administration and vice versa.

One of the main problems citizens largely worry about is the inherited problem of long delays, obstacles and the tips offered to officials in exchange for a public service delivered by the administration.

But today we have every reason to objectively believe that if not 100%, 90%, without exaggerating all the problems marring these relations, it is up to us to we solve it through good will and the citizens’ readiness to deliver on a very simple difference to these relationships, with citizens no longer having to report to the public offices in person in order to receive a service, but instead taking advantage of the whole new system of online services through the smart phones or the nearest computer available.

A total of 1209 public services, or around 95% of public services, are now delivered by accessing the online system. This means that citizens are no longer obliged to report to an office in person to obtain a document, or no longer need to know an influential person or stay on long queues to receive a public service. This may sound strange to everyone until they experience it for themselves.

E-Albania portal is a well-known address for everyone today, also because of the disaster that struck the country, namely the COVID-19 pandemic, when a large number of citizens had to come across the portal’s name. 

Unfortunately, if it was not for this disaster, a majority of citizens wouldn’t learn about the e-Albania portal, no matter how much efforts we would make to promote the portal, because the main problem facing other countries in this so radical transformation of the citizens relation with the state, their relation with the administration is precisely the inertia of the old traditional way of doing things, of staying on long queues or of getting in touch with officials to find other ways to obtain a certain public service.

This is so true that the inertia of using paper instead of a computer has hindered both the governments themselves and our government for that matter from immediately implementing what it has practically done itself and what it has had available; thus circulating documents within the government without resorting to the paperwork.

Do you know how we succeeded in delivering on this?

We did so by deciding to reject any paperwork practices among the ministries and other institutions.

We should all keep in mind the fact that only 1% of the public services were delivered online when we took office in 2013 and only 50,000 people were registered with the government services portal. 

Around 95% of the public services are now provided via the online system and a total of 2.3 million citizens have been registered with the portal. 

In their entirety, services today can be easily obtained and delivered to citizens without having to leave their houses.

It just takes everyone having a smartphone or a computer and registering with the government portal e-Albania for them to obtain the public services. It is the simplest thing to do ever.

I am not going over all the details, but I would say that we have made available a process for everyone to possess an e-signature, while at least 50 various documents bearing e-stamp are now available online and everyone can download them from the computer or the smartphone.

A process is available for businesses and every citizen to obtain a birth certificate, a certificate of good conduct or lack of a criminal record and any other document and register kids in school via the online system without having to leave their homes. It is as simple as that.

The interaction takes place immediately. It just takes registering, forwarding the request and a reply is provided as soon as possible.

Let’s focus on the new legislation, why it is so important to efforts to provide and deliver best and real-time public services. The new law is very important because we deem it crucial to provide citizens with the opportunity to obtain a service, but also make sure that responsible individuals in the public administration face consequences if they fail or refuse to deliver the required service. To illustrate it, I will bring a concrete example.

The State Cadastre has been one of the most problematic institutions in terms of delivering public services, namely the legalization permits or the property ownership titles.

Everyone can now file an online application to obtain a property ownership certificate or a legalization permit without having to report at the State Cadastre offices in person and receive a reply within an official deadline. However, we still have to work for the property ownership certificate and legalization permit to be forwarded via computer without having to print these two documents, because it is a process that requires consultation with the Cadastre’s entire digital database, which means that millions of properties have to be registered digitally. However everyone can now obtain the required document after filing an application via the portal. If no reply is provided within the official deadline, each and every one of you is now empowered by law as a mechanism is now in your hand to put the entire administration in motion by using the co-governance platform so that a reply is provided.

As a new legal mechanism, the co-governance platform allows every one of you to hold relevant officials responsible for any failure of the administration to act and this failure leaves its traces on the system. The administration official responsible for this failure is identified and faces financial and administrative sanctions.

This includes another element we have constantly repeated and again it is one more reason why we are embarking on this public awareness process on the new legislation, because many public administration officials are not still obliged by law to secure and provide all the documents a citizen needs. This will now be stipulated by law. So, it takes just filing a request to obtain a certain certificate or document and the public administration workers will have to secure all the additional documents for a public service to be delivered. In other words, you will no longer have to walk out of your homes to obtain a document, but instead just fill the application and every document and service is delivered online. The only documents any applicant should obtain for a certain license are the ones issued by private institutions, like banks or other companies, while the rest will be provided by the public administration workers.

Likewise, I can confidently state today that citizens will pay nothing for the public services and official documents delivered and issued by the administration and we are not talking about other forms of pressure for corruption purposes.

We are talking about this issue which has been incredibly distressing and we knew since the very beginning that we can address it through the use of technology and preventing officials from asking for bribes when a citizen demands a public service.

So, if a citizen of the Republic of Albania will no longer be forced to pay and will no longer face delays, will not have to wait on long queues and report at the state offices in person for 95% of the public services, since a small number of services still need in person presence to be delivered. If you apply for a new passport, you will have to report in person as you have to leave your fingerprints, which cannot be forwarded via the phone. The rest of the services are provided and delivered the way I am telling you and I want you to listen carefully, not only you here, but also everyone watching us now. It is only if you want to pursue the old ways and choose to stay on queues, try to find influential individuals and even pay bribes, I don’t know how the government would be able to help you then. But if you choose to file your application via the e-platform and no reply is provided on time, as the law stipulates it, you can sound the alarm for your rights granted by law. So, before the law is forwarded to Parliament, after the bill has been returned to Parliament by the gentleman in the President’s office, it is granted by law for everyone to demand your right and not only you will be granted the right for the service you have required, but, under law, the responsible individuals, the relevant state office will face financial and administrative sanctions for the damage they have caused.

I won’t take much of your time, and I will give the floor to the officials accompanying me, including the Director of the Agency for Dialogue and Openness, which is responsible for the co-governance and the Director General of the National Agency for Information Society that operates whole activity of the government platform e-Albania.

I will give the floor to each and every one of them and you can then ask questions and even voice concern over concrete issues and cases. While certain aspects are fulfilled, we have also received some concrete data to make it clear how important the work that has been done so far. It has yet to be completed, but colossal work has been done and a colossal investment has been made to transform public service delivery. It is unimaginable that everyone now has the opportunity to apply for a certain public service without having to leave their homes, as well as the opportunity to sound the alarm when a service is delayed or denied. The goal of this cycle of meetings is to fully inform citizens.

This is the advantage it gives to a country like ours, to countries like ours, since Albania is not a country with a 200, 300 or 500-year tradition of institutions and public administration; we are countries facing serious lack of development in terms of technology. When the technology is developed, it does not matter if you are very developed or if you are much less developed, it is enough to use the right instruments and you manage to do the same and in fact, if you look at the position of Albania today in this aspect, in all international reports, but also in the services we provide, we are undisputed first place, we are the first in the region for digital government services and it is practically not good for us as a government and for you as citizens to have this capacity and not we use and we are among the countries in the first group of countries in Europe.