Prime Minister Edi Rama at meeting with Tirana citizens as part of public accountability campaign:

Hello everyone!

First of all, I would like to appreciate and congratulate the Municipality of Tirana for this amphitheatre’s necessary transformation, finally taking the shape it deserves and the Tirana citizens, who frequent this park, deserve.

We are here today to launch a public accountability campaign, which will extend to all administrative units across Albania, not only in the municipalities, but also in the administrative units, involving all cabinet members, deputy ministers, MPs, mayors and as many citizens as possible. The campaign takes place six months after taking over the second term in office, not to hold a parade of accomplishments, which, for the sake of truth, are many, but to keep on building bridges of interaction and cooperation with the citizens, as part of the only alliance we have wished and pledged for and forces us today to make it a tangible reality to every citizen.

Those addressing this gathering prior me were four Deputy Ministers of four very important ministries [the Deputy Minister of Finance and Economy, the Deputy Minister of Interior, Deputy Minister of Justice, Deputy Minister of Health]. They have all voted for the Socialist Party, none of them has ever had leading role in the Socialist Party. They are individuals coming from that part of the Albanian society, seeking not only to change the country, but also willing to contribute to the change. They represent an example the Socialist Party I think should strongly promote throughout the country, since we have been voted in not to favour vested interests. We can best govern the country, address the citizens’ woes and build modern state administration by joining the most distinguished and best individuals.

We haven’t embarked on this campaign to say that everything is going fine. Rather, there are many things that aren’t going great and need to be adjusted. We can make things better by working together literally in the best and true sense of the word, always starting with yourself first, since its ego has been and always be the Socialist Party’s fiercest enemy and opponent. No one else can defeat us. This is known. But to make things happen, things we can and will make them happen, we need to be self-critical again and again and try to get the best out of ourselves.

We should always work together to drive out of the state offices all those who do not represent and do not honour the Socialist Party and do not represent the vote of all those who trusted the Socialist Party.

We should no longer tolerate individuals who are seeking to keep us hostage by resorting to “the old politics” by taking advantage of an official position in the Socialist Party, or a position they have assumed thanks to the Socialist Party’s contribution, seeing such position as an opportunity to advance their own narrow interests.

Today, this is entirely possible since we have made available to all citizens an instrument we didn’t use to have to date and that is the platform of the co-governance with the citizens, which would take three minutes only to present his or her complaint and it is the relevant minister himself or herself who will commit to tackle the problem.

As many as 1000 complaints by the citizens are being addressed via the platform each month. There may be a lot more, since the number of problems and concerns that go unreported and are not solved by the public administration is high. To this end, we want to make it heard and say loud and clear the very simple truth that we are ready to successfully cope with the challenge of treating everyone equally and giving everyone his or her due, either those who have been wandered around for months long or even years just to receive a certificate, or a mortgage document, and those who are to be held accountable for this situation.

I would like to highlight some other pressing issues since time is ripe to directly communicate and discuss them with citizens across the country’s territory without the mediation of dishonest televisions, newsletters, or other channels of information.

Over the past six months we have accomplished two milestone objectives;

First, we have received the positive and unconditional recommendation to open the EU accession negotiations. It is a hard-fought result; it is a result of hard work and great patience and thanks to far-reaching reforms. This is a result that has been recognized by the European Commission, an institution which commits thousands of people to examine facts, figures, results and failures, or lack of real achievements; an institution relying on expertise and not on distant prejudices of political nature. I believe it is the most stringent exam Commission that exists in Europe.

We have passed an extremely difficult test. Of course, this is not the end of our pathway towards EE membership, but just the completion of a stage along this path.

Secondly, we have achieved another historical goal to which many of you here today have directly contributed through your vote for the Socialist Party, because if the Socialist Party was not voted in to assume power there would have been no vetting of judges and prosecutors. Should the Socialist Party was not voted to govern alone, then we wouldn’t have been able to shake the columns still supporting the old palace of justice, which we have pledged to raze down and we have already begun to tear it down after our strong will to clear the way for the vetting process.

These two objectives that will shape the tomorrow’s Albania. Of course, these two objectives speak volume about the tomorrow’s Albania, far more than about today’s Albania today. They speak volume about our children’s Albania far more than about our parents’ Albania.  Achieving the goal of receiving the recommendation to launch the negotiations serves best the country’s EU accession bid, whereas achieving the goal of vetting clears the way for a new justice system that punishes everyone without distinction.

I hear a lot of people asking whether this was it, so once vetting completes they can simply resign and leave the system minding their own business and enjoying the wealth they have amassed illegally?

No, there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. This is all for the time being. The goal of the vetting is to cleanse the justice system so that honest judges and prosecutors enter the new palace of justice, which will be built on the new architecture based on the Constitution and Judiciary Reform. It will be those judges and prosecutors, who, relieved from the claws of politics and named to their positions through a merit-based process, will separate wheat from chaff. All these judges and prosecutors who are being fired now will one day return to justice system, this time not to their position as judges and prosecutors, but as individuals who will give account of what they have done in front of Albanian justice.

Just like the judges, the politicians too, from the tallest to the shortest one, should not be content by saying “I’m honest, he’s a thief”, but they should provide evidence to support it, depending on who will be going in front of prosecutors and judges, once the prosecution and the courts are finally cleansed of the whole “sludge” accumulated for more than a quarter of a century.

Today we are involved in a process with the government, more than any previous administration, being seriously committed to the real employment. The real employment stems from the new jobs generated by the private entrepreneurship. Of course, the government job to is a honoured and respectable job, but we should combat the wide-spread mentality that a decent job is one at the state administration, whereas working in private sector is “enslaving”.

This is an inherited mentality we share with other countries in the region too. But, what we are seeing now is that thanks to the overhaul of the national employment service, thanks to the parents’ ever growing awareness of the importance of the vocational education and training, and thanks to the fact that many jobseekers are unable to find of job because they lack the right professionals skills, the employment rate is increasing as more and more people are taking jobs in private sector and more and more others are showing interest in attending vocational training programs.

Many criticized us about the social assistance. I believe it has been one of the toughest, but yet one of the fairest decisions we have ever made to bring people out of a stalemate and a status of paralysation to provide them not only the opportunity, but also all the required impetus and incentives to turn focus on work. And since the economic assistance reform, with everyone speaking about the people who have been excluded from the social benefit program, but they are unwilling to accept that more than 10 thousand other families have been included in this program. These families didn’t receive cash assistance because the scheme was not totally fair. The number of newly employed people come from families that used to live on cash assistance has significantly increased.

I believe it is unfair that a society pays taxes instead of those who do not want to work. If someone is physically fit, but is not provided an employment opportunity, then it is the society’s obligation to provide him social assistance. But, if someone is physically fit and the government offers a job, but he refuses to take up the job, the society is no longer obliged to provide him the cash assistance. By narrowing this gap that until yesterday was such an open path with the economic assistance being granted to people who owned three cars, because the abuse was scandalous, we are now seeing the number of people taking up jobs steadily growing. I am confident that the national employment agencies will help over 25 000 jobseekers to find a job within this year.

We do of course know well that the wages still remain significantly low, but when choosing a low salary that is many times higher than the cash assistance and the prospect that by taking initially a low-paid job you will grow professionally and will be eligible to earn a much higher salary. Work and only work is and remains our solely choice to increase the family income and so that we will also have a lot more revenue to redistribute. If we want to increase salaries, if we want to further improve the economic conditions, we need to work harder and harder. It doesn’t take big science to know this.

Along with the public accountability campaign, we will open regional and local job fairs in each municipality across the country to show people what we are saying is for real and offer them the opportunity to contact with employers and private enterprises in person.

We visited the National Job Fair in Tirana a day ago with many companies offering not only low-paid job positions, but also banks, telecommunication firms and other enterprises offering high-paid jobs in management and specialist positions. To this end, the National Employment Service will be increasingly focused on promoting job seeking and helping those who need jobs without waiting passively.

On the other hand, it happens I often hear saying: “taxes, taxes and again taxes”, suggesting that the government had raised taxes and, what it is more; the ones to complain are those who have never paid any taxes during their lives.

The truth is that we have raised two taxes only. We’ve raised the income tax on those who earn more. We have also increased to 15% from a 10% rate the taxes on big companies. We did it because it was our election campaign pledge in 2013: those earning more will pay more in income tax. We who stand accused as a party of a handful of oligarchs, we have made the oligarchs pay far more than they used to.

Second, we have also increased the fuel tax. And we raised the fuel tax at that time, because it was the only tax we could raise without affecting the households economy. Because families, or rather those who consume fuel, for years long used to pay a fuel price that, because of international conjuncture, was much higher than the today’s price, including the tax. And instead of imposing taxes and increasing tax burden on everyone as a way to generate revenue and fill the whole we risked to fall in, we decided to raise a tax that weighs on those who, however, can afford it, because consuming fuel makes them the biggest pollutants. And despite the price-on-price tax increase, more than $100 million have been saved since 2013. That was logic behind the fuel tax increase.

These are the two taxes we have raised. We have also increased excise on tobacco, but we have done so in a bid to help people quit smoking and in this sense it is a positive move. Whoever calls it a tax hike, then well …OK I agree, but just quit smoking and you will then pay zero tax.

These are the taxes we have increased.

Meanwhile, we have reduced a large number of taxes. For example, in 2013 the Tirana International, or the so-called the 15-storey hotel, used to pay less taxes than a bakery. While a cleaning woman at the Prime Minister’s office more than the Prime Minister himself. The two used to pay a same flat 10% tax. We changed it and today the bakery pays 0 taxes. Today, the cleaning woman pays 0 taxes.

Today, teachers, physicians, nurses, civil servants, employees in the private sector, waiters, everyone earning a salary of up to 600,000 ALL pay less than they used to pay until 2013.

Small business with an annual turnover of over 5 million lek pays 0 taxes, while once paid 10%.

Business with annual turnover of over 8 million lek now pays 5% in taxes, whereas once paid 10%.

Now we are making the new move, we will raise the threshold of the annual turnover to over 100 million lek and a final decision is yet to be made on the exact threshold, which means that all businesses with a turnover of over 120 or 140 million ALL will pay a 5% tax only.

Is this a tax cut or a tax increase?

By paying 5% only, they will no longer be forced to lie and will stop lying each other, the state and the consumers. When you refuse to issue invoices then you will be lying the tax administration and the consumer.

What we are doing with the small business is not to increase tax revenue collection from small business, because what we collect from small business is 0.8% of total revenue. Meanwhile 99.2% of total revenue is collected from the big enterprises. We want to catch the big ones and we do not want the small business to be used by the big enterprises to avoid paying taxes, by declaring a very low turnover. This is the goal.

So, such claims are far away from the truth, because the government hasn’t raised taxes. It is quite the contrary, the government that has lowered taxes. This is the truth.

There is a problem indeed, since many who didn’t pay the electricity bills think taxes have increased because they are paying electricity now. Many who were used not to pay water bills now think government has raised taxes. Many who were not accustomed to the idea that there is a property tax now think taxes have increased. But this is not our problem.

The truth is that local government authorities have raised local taxes and tariffs and the move could be interpreted as a government tax increase policy. However, there is a convincing explanation for the local authorities’ decision to increase taxes? The education tax levied by Tirana Municipality has yielded its results since 17 new school buildings meeting the highest standard levels are being constructed in Tirana. With the construction of these new schools, Tirana will stop having over-crowded schools or two-shift schools. At the end of the day, the tax is a contribution that will be returned to citizens. It is true the Tirana citizens pay a green tax, but Tirana has a Mayor who works around the clock planting trees in order to expand the city’s green spaces.

Paying taxes is patriotic.

Thank you very much. We are ready to answer all the questions you may raise, but I would beg you all to speak more openly because things are wrong. So do not worry I may be greatly surprised at your questions. I know things should improve and there are a lot of things to fix and for the things to improve, not just me, but all of us who are tasked with tackling them should directly listen your complaints. We should hear them from ordinary people who do not deceive us, because it is them who encounter problems in their daily lives.

I have a question regarding employment. Which are the greatest employment opportunities for the jobseekers in Tirana?

PM Rama: I would like to ask you personally. Are you jobless?

No, I am not jobless.

PM Rama: So you are like the ones who never pay taxes and keep complaining “we are suffocating under this tax burden.”

I am talking about the young Albanian people in general and Tirana’s youth in particular.

PM Rama: People should look for job, because no one will be knocking on your door to wake you up. I should also put emphasis on another phenomenon. In most of cases, it is the parents who go to look for a job for their children. When I say children I don’t mean four-year-old kids, but adults aged 40 years. Yesterday at the National Job Fair it happened to meet a gentleman, filling a job application for his daughter.

Kastriot Hajdini, a landowner on the basis of the Constitution of Albania. If possible, I would ask the government to explore possibility to abrogate Law 7501 on the land along the coastal areas. The Law 7501 is an anti-economic and antinational and fratricidal law. The Mafia only has developed investment in coastal real estate projects along the coast stretching from Vlora to Saranda and you already know that several properties have been sequestered. The government should provide an answer, either positive or a negative one, about my property rights since the state’s archive and the cadastre office issues the official document recognizing this property right inherited from my father, mother, grandfather and grandmother. If the response is a positive one then it would be in best interest of the government and the landowner. If the response is negative, then the Strasbourg Court decisions and consequences are well-known. Please take it into consideration.

PM Rama: Your question includes a series of pressing issues, but I will briefly say that serious crimes and abuses have been committed with the land along the coast. We are trying to bring those who have committed these crimes to justice and meanwhile we are also trying to clear as much as possible “the mines the corrupt judges have laid throughout the territory,” which are actually part of this story because this story would not have happened without corrupt judges.

The Law 7501 cannot be abrogated. I personally think the law was fair for the then Albania and, above all, it is a fair law for all those who should have benefited from.

But the problem is that the Law 7501 has been widely manipulated. According to the Law 7501, the state grants ownership or lease rights over agricultural land to legal and physical entities and households become owners of the agricultural land. However, the law has been misinterpreted and used to distribute land along the coast. When we embarked on constructing Vlora waterfront promenade, or Lungomare, many people claimed they were owners of the beach and sea and claimed for land compensation or restitution. They had recovered documents showing that their ancestors used to live in a dry land that was later to be covered by sea. This is a serious abuse with the Law 7501. I would be lying you if I was to say that the ruling majority will abrogate the Law 7501. The government will review all the property titles on land along coast that have been issued pursuant to Law 7501 and state-owned lands have been reclassified from “unproductive land” to “agricultural land” and as such, distributed to many people.

We have heard you speaking about plans to open the Kukes airport and build new airport in Vlora. What is going to happen with the current high ticket prices at Rinas Airport?

PM Rama: It is actually a right question. Lest start with the second part of your question.

It is true the Rinas Airport keeps the flight prices high due to the previously signed concessionary contract which entitles the company, which has built and administers the airport, to set some tariffs, among the region’s highest. This also causes the ticket price hikes. Terminating the concessionary contract is an impossible mission, because it would bring about legal consequences, which then turn into huge financial costs. But what we should do is to allow and enhance competitiveness. I am confident that competitiveness would lead to swift changes to the airport tariffs and ticket prices since the concessionaire would be forced to keep the balance, because we have insisted that the Vlora airport  – negotiations are underway with the company that has offered a bid to build the airport  – to  set the region’s lowest tariffs. We have explored and analysed all price tickets and tariffs in the region’s airports and the negotiations with the construction company focus on our demand to set the lowest tariffs in the region in order to much greater mobility for Albanian passengers and open a process of enhanced competitiveness. The same goes over the Kukes airport although it will be a low-cost airport available to low-cost airlines. On the other hand, the Vlora airport will be an international commercial airport meeting all standards, whereas Kukes will be a low-cost airport for low-cost airlines, which will also offer much lower flight ticket prices. This is what the government can do to pave the way to reduce current ticket prices.

 

We have so far focused on more personal problems. My question is about children without parental care, living in public institutions. We find that their employment is very low, because the labour market always requires highly-skilled jobs.

PM Rama: The government has prepared a series of new employment programs, including a direct funding program to cover the vocational training cost for all jobseekers ready take up a job, but lacking the right professional skills. We will fund their two or three-month vocational training program providing a higher payment than the average of the cash social assistance.

We are a contingent of around 6000 families under the law on state-owned rental housing in former privately owned houses. We have made countless efforts, without staging protests. In 2002, finally a law was adopted in our favour. Later in 200, we were asked to leave houses without being consulted first. We kept on fighting. A Constitutional Court ruling underlines that legal rights of these people have been infringed. The majority of these people are dying. We have sent the case to the Strasbourg Court  by end of 2016, whereas the government has reported to the Strasbourg Court it was working to solve the problem. More than 250 000 apartment houses have been privatized across Albania. Many of these families were eligible to preferential bank loans, but many others were denied loans due to their age. A month ago, the government rightly decided to cancel their debt. Many of these families, including me, are homeless, while inequality keeps steadily deepening. When the government will address our concern and provide us a decent home just like it did with more than 250000 other families?

PM Rama: This is one of countless problems inherit from the past. When someone asked about the Law 7501, which is rejected by many former landowners, I confidently said this is the right law. If you asking about the decision to reinstate houses to the families who were forcefully and violently evicted from their own homes many years ago, then I would say that decision was a right one. It does not make sense that a family who has been forcibly removed from the grandparent’s home or grandfather should not return to their family’s ancestral home. There is no relation between the privately-built houses by the grandfathers of these families and the houses built for housing during the Communist regime. The two have nothing in common. We need to be realistic about this matter. On the other hand, it is also your right to push for a solution. The Parliament will adopt new law on housing tomorrow. The new law actually will not tackle the housing problems, but it creates more opportunities than the existing legislation in order to help as many people as possible to earn what they deserve for long now. I know my answer won’t satisfy you, but should you were serving in my position then you will understand you have to provide answers that do not satisfy your interlocutor.

I am a Tirana e Re neighbourhood resident, or the so-called “aviation palace” and I have failed to privatize a room we have privately built. I have been wandering off office to office for more than 18 years, but officials have refused to address our problem. Half of the building has been privatized. Please, help us to solve the problem, if possible.

PM Rama: I do not want to avoid this, but I want to make use of this case to say that for issues like the one you raise, the fastest route, the simplest way, the safest way to receive a responsible official response is to write your complaints to the platform for the co-governance with the citizens. You will receive an official response within 10 days.

I would like to ask any property registration office employee, because, despite the good work, we are not being properly served. We have to move to and fro, from the property registration office to the municipality and back again to the property registration office. Updating the land maps is a serious problem. Such maps have been compiled from office at that time and one can only imagine the mess. You have witnessed for yourself while campaigning in Petrela village with local residents raising the issue of illegal property and land acquisition cases. Secondly, expressing first deepest respect and gratitude, I would urge you to never abandon the Socialist Party. If it ever happens for the current opposition to assume power they will push us to the brink of hole.

PM Rama: Could you please explain what did you have in mind with this Socialist Party abandonment thing?

We are a political force which all other parties envy. It would be a pity if you were to hand over the government. This was it. This is what I am asking you for.

PM Rama: Why do you think so? Have you dreamed recently?

I am saying this because we have witnessed it earlier. Please protect us. Either you build this country, or we shall all leave our homeland.

PM Edi Rama: Now I see your point. But as we Tirana local residents say: It never happens twice. In other words, you don’t have to worry because if it was for the current opposition and the whole current political zoo we could live for 1000 years. Our problem is that we shouldn’t run away with the idea we are permanent winners. The only risk we face is failing to do things we can actually do. A serious opposition, an opposition with a political program, ideas and vision can challenge you and as such would be very difficult to defeat, but you should bring out the best in yourself.

So we are the ones to risk our own-self. The main danger comes right from our very own ranks in the sense that people we place our trust in betray and misuse it forgetting they are there because of the people. We must constantly keep them under the pressure of the truth and with the consciousness that we cannot otherwise succeed. This is what we both agree on.

As of the land maps updating, this is not a problem we encounter in the property registration office. We have embarked on updating these maps but it takes time, but the truth is that failure to draw these maps has caused serious damages. The land maps were old and used over and over again and were almost entirely unreadable. You must be sure that the process of updating the land maps will complete and everyone will receive what they deserve.

I am a citizen who has been immigrating to France for 20 years. Like everyone else, my desire was for my children to come back here one day. I visit Albania with my husband every year efforts to win back a shop we have bought ten years ago. We still lack an official document certifying that the shop is our property. Meanwhile, this year we have made the payment, we have booked and signed a deal with the owner. We have also deposited 102 thousand euros in the bank since 2008 and. When you took office we were extremely hopeful. But ten years later, the construction company has yet to complete the construction, but he must also receive another due construction permit first.

PM Rama: This is your relation with the construction company based on an accord. There is no law obliging the Municipality to prevent a private company or an individual from developing his own property in order to complete the previous investment first. Your case is painful, but it should be addressed by the Court only. The government and the Ministry of Justice can do nothing in this case/

How long is a building permit valid?

PM Edi Rama: I agree that there is an expiry day of the construction permit. Various penalties are imposed in case of a public investment. When it comes to a private investment, this is a matter that should be resolved by the private investor and other signing parties. It is not a state issue. I don’t see any mechanism forcing the investor to complete the construction works. However, the Mayor of Tirana is attending the meeting and you can ask and meet him to discuss the matter.

I am the deputy head teacher of the “Martyrs of Freedom” school. Our school is part of the municipal project. I am very confident that next school year will begin in optimal conditions in September. Our school regularly hosts artistic events along with other arts and music schools. I would like to ask you whether it is possible to gain financial support for these events.

PM Edi Rama: On its platform of co-governance with the citizens, the government dedicates a specific section to projects proposed by school communities, groups of students and their teachers. But this is a matter of project and a question whether a certain project is acceptable and fundable, but you definitely should to try it.

Thank you! And meanwhile I want to tell you that this is just the first of a series of meetings of this format due to be held in all Tirana administrative units, including also Petrela, Kombinat, Ndroq, and even Zall Herr.

 

Thank you very much!