The post-disaster recovery and reconstruction program in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that rattled Albania on Nov 26 last year today entered a new phase as work kicked off to construct an initial group of 53 new houses in the first new residential neighbourhood of individual homes in the Administrative Unit of Farke, Tirana Municipality. In the meantime, Tirana Municipality has already completed the required procedures for the construction of 150 other houses. Prime Minister Edi Rama, accompanied by the Mayor of Tirana, Erion Veliaj, attended the ceremony to lay the first brick officially marking the start of building work on the first home of the new rural neighbourhood in the village of Farke, which is set to complete in the next 20 days.
“This is a memorable day, because we finally start laying the first bricks to build the walls of the new houses as part of the last segment on the path of reconstruction program following a process of verifications, planning, designing, procurement procedures,” Prime Minister Edi Rama said in his remarks.
“Contracts have been signed to construct the first 53 new individual homes. Around 20 of them are 3/1s, 20 others are two bedroom hoses and 13 of them are one bedroom houses for smaller families. We will maintain this construction pace until construction of the first batch of 53 completes,” Mayor Veliaj said.
The government head voiced confidence that majority of the families that have lost their individual homes due to the powerful earthquake will move into new houses before Nov 26 , whereas many of the families that lost their apartment homes will celebrate the New Year’s Eve in new apartments.
“I would like to assure the families still living in tents or rented houses that if these families here will soon move into their newly-built houses, then many of you will also be able to move into your new houses before Nov 26 to remember this year as the year when their lives completely changed. They will live in much better homes, safer and stronger ones, offering also much better living conditions for all of those in the quake-affected areas, where new neighbourhoods and community spaces will be constructed to provide completely different opportunities, services and living quality. Work has already kicked off to build first the infrastructure of several neighbourhoods and we are intensely on project implementation process for the new residential neighbourhoods with apartment buildings. I am convinced that despite the delays and difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic – and I hope that you all and we all together fight to avoid a possible increase in fresh infections that would force us to impose new lockdown – we will succeed in making sure that a considerable part of these families and their children celebrate the New Year’s Eve in their new homes,” Rama said.
In the meantime, all schools funded through the state budget funds are already being constructed, while construction of more educational facilities funded by the EU is expected to start soon.
