Speech released by Prime Minister Edi Rama during issuance of legalization certificates to residents of informal areas of the municipality of Durrës:

It is a pleasure, first of all for us politicians who have the reputation to make promises but not to keep them, and I believe this is not our fault, – to be here today and make reality a major commitment of our campaign for Albanian Renaissance – which was not only a campaign of the SP but also of the SMI – to move at a fast pace towards a normal Albania, a European Albania. And as Alliance for European Albania, we are here today because we are willing to make reality our commitment to finalize the legalization process, an infected wound of our country that has become deeper every year, and we will make it for free. We will start making it reality, as we have already done everywhere in Albania, by issuing the property documents to all those who have applied years ago. Let us not forget that 160 thousand applications have been submitted in all these years, and absolutely nothing has been done in this respect. Nobody has knocked on citizens’ doors to assist them. There are thousands and tens of thousands applications for which families have paid not once but twice, three times without mentioning the money they have given to those who have been showing up at their doors asking for bribes.

You must remember very well those people coming to you each time an electoral campaign was approaching and showing you papers and meters for measurements, and they even have given you fake documents, the so called “land patents”, the famous “Shaban’s Land Patents” of the electoral campaigns.

We are here today to issue your property title documents. We have made a radical change in this process and the entire body of ALUIZNI will be able to perform it: from now on you, citizens in need will not need to go to ALUIZNI because it is ALUIZNI that will come to you. ALUIZNI will come to your homes and be your servant so that you can face the entire process and complete the whole documentation. This process, that used to be a big torture for all those families that have applied for legalization, not only will be completed with the direct assistance of ALUIZNI experts but in addition it will be totally free. The entire process will be on the government. Every family will benefit from this free legalization process, with no exceptions, because our intent is to finalize it. We want to finalize this process by giving a chance to every family that has built a home. This is the main purpose of this process – it is true that applications have been made for shops, stores, restaurants, but these are another part of the process and other rules are applied to them because these constructions have been made for profit, not for need. We are doing this not only to give a chance to those who have made constructions to become owners, but also for another reason that is directly connected to economy. It is directly connected to the household economy of each and every one of you, it is connected to our national economy because there are dozens of thousands Albanian families who have invested everything they had in order to have a house, and all the money emigrants have earned with their hard work around the world has become walls and roofs. When a house that today is only a shelter which actually does not exist because there are no papers that prove it is your house, becomes a registered property, from this moment on it is not anymore just a shelter but also a circulating capital. You can use that property, the documents of that property, in a bank to apply for a mortgage and start a small business, or to enlarge a small business you already have; you can apply for a mortgage to start an economic and trade business with others. You can apply for a mortgage. And this applies to many families who have come from villages and other areas and want to cooperate with someone who remained in the village and invest in livestock and agricultural activity for profit. You can apply for a mortgage to support your daughter’s or son’s studies. Thus the house is not anymore only a place where you eat, sleep and find shelter from the rain but it is also a capital, and all the money invested to build that house is not dead anymore but it revives and becomes your circulating capital that you can use in collaboration with banks. This is what legalization means. For this reason we will take this process forward at a fast pace and with determination, and without connecting it directly to money.

(…to be continued)