Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama:

Hello everyone!

This is an important moment, because one important segment of our national program for introducing new technology to provide quality services and to monitor these services now comes to life in one of the most delicate areas of the attempt to revive our country, which is the area of irrigation and drainage.

Actually we have made a very ambitious commitment, which is to bring water to every land parcel. If we look at the 20-year trend, we will understand better that this is really a very ambitious commitment, because the possibility for irrigation, instead of being expanded, has been increasingly narrowed since 1991-92. In fact, today we have under water only 110 thousand hectares out of the 420 thousand that Albania used to have as irrigated agricultural land in 1991-92. Of course, this 20 year period has brought many transformations in these 420 thousand acres, and in relation to agricultural land surface these have been negative transformations, while in the years 1991 -92 these surfaces were for agricultural production, they were later transformed into construction lands, and production areas were transformed into neighborhoods with informal constructions. But, however, a significant area of ​​agricultural land has remained. A surface that can be irrigated, but that today cannot function properly because of the limited possibility for being irrigated.

We have done considerable work also in this sector, and as in any other sector we have started with an essential and thorough inventory of the situation in order to stop the large hemorrhage that 18 months ago had flooded every sector of our economic and social development.

On the other hand, as today’s presentation demonstrates, we have started an intensive work to modernize the means by which the sector is managed, and to end, as the minister said, a scandalous era abuses and false reporting of works done. In fact, the reporting of completed works for irrigation and drainage has been characterized by an extreme and intolerable abuse of public funds, as result of an extremely primitive organization of the whole system.

What will happen next will be revolutionary for the system, since on the one hand, by applying the historical major reform of the organization of the territory, the responsibility of irrigation and drainage will go to 61 local government units and to the new heads of municipalities who, along with their administration will respond directly to every citizen who works in the village and uses agricultural land. At the same time, the new mayors, the new administration that will come out from a large regenerating process of governance at the local level, as you can see, is made available an extremely modern and unique instrument to monitor in real time all the work carried out in this sector.

Our ambition, as the minister said, is to double and practically almost consume within this term the need of agricultural land, or that can be available for agriculture and for water. But at the same time, in order to ensure also its drainage throughout the territory, whether as a necessary process within the entire production process, either as a necessary process to avoid at maximum avoidable flooding, the floods that generally are not due to heavy raining for which drainage canals can do nothing, but to avoid almost normal raining that cannot be filtered because the drainage system lacks functionality in many parts and is blocked.

Under this objective and according to this inventory by the Ministry of Agriculture, more than 100 thousand other agricultural households will have access to irrigation, after more than 20 years of total inability to work the land, due to lack of water. All this will happen within the next 2 and half years, thus fulfilling an ambitious but achievable commitment of our governing majority.

In turn, we are convinced that this will bring further impetus to the growth of households in the village and, without the slightest doubt, a substantial increase in agricultural production across the country, which will certainly affect the overall economic growth of our country.

On the other hand, in the next 2 and half years, within the term of our majority government, we are confident that we already have all the possibilities and instruments to provide a qualitative and quantitative improvement of the drainage system in the 270 thousand hectares and avoid at a considerable extent the flooding of production and agricultural lands.

It is also undisputed that in this process, this new instrument, which today is made available to the entire management system of irrigation and drainage, will guarantee us a new and much more efficient way for spending public finances and through these do a lot more work and have a lot more results. In doing so, all major leaks due to abuse and the lack of an observable system are with this instrument almost entirely suppressed.

As you saw, every tool that is part of the “state fleet” to ensure the functionality of irrigation and drainage canals, is now part of an online system that monitors in detail the way how tools operate within this system, the amount of fuel that tools spend in order to work within the system, kilometers of cleaned canals, or the ones that remain to be cleaned and so on, a number of other details that will be of invaluable help to offices and people who will be responsible for thoroughly monitoring this system.

It is a great and long awaited innovation that today was exposed in a synthesized way by the Ministry of Agriculture. In addition, it joins at the right moment the innovation that will be brought by the entire organizational transformation of the territory of the Republic of Albania. Following this other innovation, the ratio between citizens who vote and elected voting, even in this sector, will be a ratio based on the obligations and the opportunity to respond to these obligations. Once the new law is adopted, and it will be soon in the hands of lawmakers, the mayor or the new municipal administration will not be able anymore to evade this responsibility if they are unable to respond to the needs of communities and farm families in the territory of the administrative unit.

On the other hand, it would be possible to establish a far more beneficial relationship of joint work, between the new local units, the Ministry of Agriculture and the government, in order to end the endless stories of abuse and insanity, that came as result of malfunctioning or degeneration of structures thoroughly corrupt and corrupting of these associations, boards and stories, and in order for the Ministry of Agriculture to be able to monitor in real time the functionality of the entire system. Through this division of works, the intention is also to build appropriate policies to assist local units, in view of the common goal, which is precisely to provide irrigation and drainage in every plot, and through these guarantees to automatically increase household production of farmers and, obviously, enhance the economy of communities of local units and our national economy as well.

I would like to cordially congratulate the Minister, the Ministry of Agriculture, the administration for having an aggressive and innovative approach in view of our national program, which extends to all those aspects that deal with services in the territory and for having finally actualized a new instrument thanks to the introduction of new technology, that will be available since now to all interested parties. In addition, it will enable an extremely high level of monitoring in order to guarantee us also a new level of accountability and effectiveness in the work that the state is required to do both at a central and local level, in order to facilitate and support family farmers throughout the territory of the Republic of Albania.

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An online system will be used for the first time to monitor the management of irrigation and drainage system in the country. This new instrument that will streamline the system administration was presented today in the presence of Prime Minister Edi Rama and Minister of Agriculture, Edmond Panariti.

This instrument will transform and modernize the entire system of irrigation and drainage management in the country. Thanks to a new technology, it will track and control in real time the technical capacity of irrigation and drainage across the territory. It will perform a real-time tracking of all motor capacities nearby drainage boards, starting from their position, the volume of work and the history of all work done.

Minister Panariti noted that the tracking system will avoid abuse that has accompanied this sector for years. In addition, it will maximize effectiveness of public funds for cleaning canals for irrigation works and in general, for the maintenance of the entire system of irrigation and drainage canals.