Remarks by Prime Minister Edi Rama at presentation of the 2022 state budget bill on the public order and safety:

 

Hello everyone and I would like to express my profound respect and appreciation to all State Police officers and officials for their hard work, sacrifices and of course for their performance results.

Of course, it is regrettable when certain individuals under the State Police uniform, just like it was the case featuring a policeman maltreating a journalist in broad daylight, not for the fact that the maltreated girl was a journalist, but for the fact that being a journalist the incident became even more sensational, but in its essence for the fact that he mishandled a citizen, such events shadow all this work, and moreover all these sacrifices and the performance results.

Certainly, each of you, every State Police officer, who leaves home every morning to go to a difficult front, does not deserve to have in his work and in the image of the uniform he or she wears such splashes of mud that are result of the intolerable violation of the line of conduct by the State Police officers and therefore it is important, not only to act and it has been always the case, as a rule, quickly and with a zero tolerance policy towards such individuals, by immediately removing them from the State Police ranks, but it is equally important for the police officials to continue and emphasize the fact that there is no need for State Police force to resort to any actions or excessive words, because the State Police officers are the embodiment of the law and the latter does not speak, does not yell, does not threaten, does not insult, but the law just acts. And when it comes to law enforcement, it is totally irrelevant to resort to any act and actions that indeed disgrace every State Police worker and officer, who can all be described and can be seen by the public opinion in a negative light, just because of someone who doesn’t deserve to be your male or female colleague. It is actually the male colleagues who are singled out for such actions, because the female police officers are the most significant and meaningful embodiment of the good conduct and efficiency of the State Police wherever they are assigned to serve.

I am not going over details and figures, because they were already elaborated by previous speakers.

I don’t want to reiterate objectives, as they were all revealed, but I would like to put emphasis on the government priorities during its third term in office, which are also the benchmarks and the roadmap in each step we take, either when we project the new state budget, or when we prepare the entire framework of the bylaws designed to improve the State Police work and performance.

First of all, combating crime is a top priority, including all of its aspects and this is a front where tangible progress has been made, but a lot remains to be done and where lack of same efficiency is still being obviously felt, like it was the efficiency of the power of law operation or this unit of the police force in general, the fight against financial and economic crime, where more forces should be mobilized, more attentions should be focused and more efforts should be made to provide the right conditions that would lead to same satisfactory performance results, as well as the other part regarding the fight against crime.

The second priority, no less important than the first one, focuses on taking public order and safety, the road traffic safety in the Republic of Albania to a much higher level, and in parallel, it focuses on establishment of an absolute control over the territory of the Republic of Albania, not only in terms of preventing criminal activity or offences related to the violation of the person, but with the criminal activity and violation of the law related to Albania itself, the territory, the wonderful body of this country, which God has created to be a paradise for those who live here, but that hand of man has turned it into a hell for its inhabitants.

It is intolerable that environmental crimes are committed right in front of the eyes of the State Police and it is intolerable that the highest efficiency in the fight against environmental crimes is limited to imposing fines against residents in remote rural areas for building a surrounding wall, and such a fight is not in the form of zero tolerance policy towards those who fill the sea with gravel and pour concrete at the beach.

The other priority is to further increase the service standards for citizens.

To deliver on these priorities, I believe we have planned a budget, which despite the tough restrictions due to the need to protect household consumers and small business from the crisis of energy prices, the next year’s state budget is designed to boost capacities of the Ministry of Interior and the State Police to invest and to further motivate police officers.

I would point out exactly what the Interior Minister also mentioned, namely the indispensability to differentiate reward between the State Police officials and officials, who are assigned to serve in the areas near the place of residence and the police officials and officers who are assigned to serve in areas distant from their place of residence, far from their families; a differentiation in reward of those who return back home in the evening and those who are forced to send the good night wish to their kids via phone. This is just the beginning through an initial intervention planned throughout this term in office, as we will take more steps to make sure that such a differentiation becomes more meaningful in the coming years, by increasing wages for every police worker, as well as by increasing bonuses and rewards for those serving homeland far from their place of residence. Of course, we can afford making such a salary hike decision now as we have built the opportunities to do so, and not because we didn’t wish to do it earlier.

The other aspect that the Interior Minister highlighted includes also some other components, not directly include in the state budget projected for the State Police, but which constitute an investment designed to assist and further improve the State Police activity, starting with the installation of smart outdoor security camera systems, initially along the national roads, where in tandem with the autonomous vehicles recently introduced by the State Police for the very first time, which would allow and provide real-time control of the traffic along the road axis and significantly improve road safety.

You have heard me saying this previously too, but a national traffic control centre to has been already built through a funding secured by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy to ensure safe and efficient management of the national roads across the Republic of Albania and the process is underway with work set to kick off for installation of the smart surveillance cameras system, which will eventually remove the police patrols from the country’s national roads and would allow police to react based on facts and on real-time information collected at the traffic control centre.

Such an investment will represent a huge leap towards management and control over the territory, a significant step towards rationalizing the State Police energies and sources, a huge transformation in the efforts to ultimately eradicate corruption practices and bribery, which although sporadic and almost eliminated now, if compared to previously, such phenomena are still present throughout the system of the direct relation between drivers and the police officers, who ask drivers to pull over to be charged for a traffic offense. The investment will also mark a great step towards addressing any reciprocal concern, as one of the police officers already noted here, when a driver uses abusive or insulting words or behaviour towards  a police officer.

However, also in the cases when a police officer resorts to unprofessional actions and behaviour towards a citizen, just like it was the case we recently all witnessed.

The other project designed to significantly contribute to the State Police activity includes an important investment, namely the satellites project.

You have certainly heard about our plans to launch two satellites into orbit. You have certainly also come across funny memes and mockery of the satellites project, but it is not bad at all that people are laughing, because laughter comes with health benefits. However, we plan to launch the first satellite in March, and it will provide real-time information to the state institutions, and the State Police will be provided with daily information and data on the potential illegal building activities and therefore will no longer depend on the performance and readiness of the police officers to do their job on the ground.

Meanwhile, everything will now be under the surveillance of eyes in the sky that has no cousins, no friends, no party affiliation, no emotional connection, but it focuses on the information collection and data transfer into the hands of the authorities who have to work and operate based on that data.

The State Police too will now be provided with real-time information about our common priority, fighting the environmental pollution, the illegal waste disposal sites where garbage piles up, and I don’t mean the public trash cans. Such disposal sites constitute environmental crimes and the state police are responsible for the control of the territory where they operate and should identify, not only the whereabouts of these crime scenes, but also the protagonist of such crimes, and it is then the National Inspectorate of Territorial and Environmental Protection, which has not been accidentally placed under the Ministry of Interior authority, is called to take further actions.

It is intolerable that a 3000 square-meter field in the Pylli i Sodes area in Vlora, just a three-minute drive,  is filled with gravel, but the police have no information about it.

It is intolerable to pour gravel to set up an illegal platform on Jonufra beach or along the coastline and no one knows anything about it and everything depends on citizens who can see it and can take the trouble to notify an authority or a television channel.

Me poshte vijon pjesa e dyte e fjales se KM Rama ne prezantimin e buxhetit per policine:

I would beg you all, primarily the state police officials, to carefully read each article of the legislation recently adopted by the parliament of the Republic of Albania and realize that these are crimes and the police are tasked with enforcing the law on this aspect, as the environmental crimes are actually widespread across the country. The new legislation no longer stipulates that a person caught while committing an environmental crime simply faces a fine and gets away with it. The legislation has been stiffened and any one committing such an action would be arrested and be sent before justice.

The same goes for the unauthorized constructions.

The new law has clearly stipulated it. There could be no more both authorized and unauthorized buildings.

Any building that violates the rules is an illegal one. There could not be four authorized floors and two unauthorized ones, while whole state institutions, inspectors, teams and funds are then committed to demolish the illegally built floors of a structure. The whole building will be considered illegal and the individuals responsible for that would be sent before justice, while the building will be demolished.

It is also intolerable that as you, the State Police officers are responsible, they still keep finding excuses, most of the time unjustifiably, also when it comes to certain irresponsible drivers, though Albania’s road infrastructure still needs major investments to meet the required standards and therefore there is a number of traffic accident hotspots with really high probability of deadly accidents, but still it seems that you allow certain individuals to create more such hotspots allowing them to power gravel and build all sorts of structures and platforms and gas stations along the national roads. These are all actions that go unnoticed by the State Police officers, but they draw the attention of an ordinary citizen.

What do the traffic police in the Republic of Albania do?

Why are traffic police officers paid for, when they fail to properly carry out their duty?

It is intolerable that a number of roadside businesses that offer tractors and bricks along the highway. This is an issue we have been talking about.

I agree with the Interior Minister, who noted that the tradition has it for the State Police to deal with these issues, it has been over the years culturally difficult to embrace a 24/7 culture of work, focusing on the illegal activities of individuals involved in crimes. It is time to put an end to it. It is also time to put an end to the negligence, with the police officers turning a blind eye to the view of trucks fully loaded with illegally logged wood, although a moratorium on logging is in force throughout Albania, just like the moratorium on hunting.

For this reason, the State Police Director General and the police officials must oversee implementation of the plan on protection of the environment, for the protection of the territory, which is based on the success story of protecting the country from cannabis cultivation.

The satellites would make it impossible for everyone to cultivate even 70 square centimetres of narcotics, the point beyond which the satellite can no longer clearly spot. The State Police will be provided real-time information on what happens throughout Albania’s territory on daily basis and the police officers will no longer stand unjustly accused when a secret plot of cannabis plant is spotted and discovered on top of a mountain, where a police inspector can’t head to every day, because it is not about a peak of a mountain only, but many of them. This will end now.

This would be also the case regarding protection of the riverbeds from illegal excavations and all these components will be totally under the control of the State Police through a single inspector, namely the eye in the sky or in the orbit.

I will not take more of your time to go over other aspects of satellites that will help other institutions too, but instead I would highlight another investment, which again has not been included in the budget, but it is an investment that would help the State Police to spot and nail not only the cannabis plots, but also working in these plots and criminal groups involved in such activity. The investment includes a series of smart drones to control the territory.

Smart drone systems will be made available to many institutions, including the State Police, and they will allow police to launch real-time manhunt operations to haunt down criminals, wanted individuals and identify wanted people even if they in the woods, organize search and rescue operations and emergency response actions, when people are stranded and trapped at remote areas and mountains due to the winter storms and snow and when they have no access to the network for them to be located and identified.

All these are massive investment projects designed to totally transform the State Police capacities to collect and handle information, completely transforming the State Police relation with the citizens, because the direct contact will be gradually reduced. When the police are deployed, they will no longer raid addresses hoping they would find something, but they will be deployed to enforce a decision that has been made based on uncontested information provided by the eyes in the sky.

Last but not least, it is crucial that efforts continue to improve the quality of the Security Academy, where good work has been already done, but a lot remains to be done, because if we are to look back to 2013, we would find very important data.

Back in 2013, we had two significant data on the situation of the State Police. One of the data showed that 70% of the police vehicles were out of order, taking into consideration that even 100% of the State Police vehicles is not a sufficient figure.

The second data showed that Albanian Police had the highest number of ageing officers compared to the police forces in the region and in Europe, as well as the lowest education level in the region and beyond it. The first has been already resolved now, and not that the State Police no longer need more vehicles and equipment, but they now have the entire fleet available, totally modernized, while more vehicles will add to this fleet each year.

While the second issue is in the process, a younger police force is being built gradually.

For this reason, we need to again review the relation between the State Police and the Illyrian Guard.

The Illyrian Guard should be a company available to the State Police and the police officers who at a certain point, without losing their status as State Police members, can be assigned to easier duties. On the other hand the Illyrian Guard becomes a company, which improves performance, while its responsibility increases. We must make the Security Academy even more attractive, not only for the girls and boys, who will receive decent education to serve at all those levels of field work, as well as to tackle financial crime, cybercrime, areas that for the sake of truth, we lag far behind.

Another important investment will be implemented in this regard to help certain State Police units and the Ministry of Interior will be one of the main institutions to take advantage of it, the new state-of-the-art centre against cybercrime due to be built by the Ministry of Defence.

Dear friends and very honourable officials and police officers!

We have been making continued effort to make sure that you feel and gain more respect and support. I would like to assure you that we will do whatever it takes that you feel more respected and gain more support, so that you become not only precious for the hard work you do, though it is somehow a sort of an individual vocation, but also feel more motivated, because you constantly feel and will feel that this state values you as a very important human capital, an irreplaceable human capital and we will do utmost effort to ensure that value of this human capital grows further. We will definitely stand by you in this effort by mobilizing all our means. I am very happy to have delivered on two important aspects. First of all, we have managed to make sure that the State Police recruitment, starting with the Security Academy and the State Police recruitment, is a merit-based process. I can’t claim that there are no cases when such a principle is shunned, but it is generally clear that the governing political party, its lawmakers, and cabinet members no longer have the power to help individuals to join the State Police force.

In this respect, I would like to particularly praise the Internal Control Service for improving their work quality as a key institution under the new law, and we will adopt soon to transform it into a very important agency of the State Police.

I am very confident that the work done recently and the performance and result accomplishments, as well as the message conveyed by the police service that there are no untouchable people and that whoever violates the State Police uniform would face the law, make our near future very encouraging. On the other hand, in addition to this aspect, it is a very important aspect of continuous evaluation of merit within the State Police. Significant changes have taken place, important changes will continue to take place within the State Police because no one will be able to stay in a high position if not living up to their assignment and task.

Anyone feeling he or she can contribute more, they will be definitely granted the opportunity to do so.

I would like to thank you and extend my best wishes to you and your families, who carry a very special burden unlike other families in general, because you serve in a much harder front and they live through a very special distress.

God bless your families and may the best be done for them and you all!

Thank you!