Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks: Taking stock of the whole situation at hand and considering all completed interactions, I believe this is the last cabinet meeting we hold to discuss actions to deal with the post-earthquake emergency situation in the country. In the days to come, we will focus on work being done by the plenipotentiary head of the emergency management office and the National Rebuilding Committee. In the meantime, all cabinet members, in addition to their tasks they have been required to carry out to deal with the emergency situation at hand, we should give a strong and fresh impetus to other daily activities. There is a number of daily issues that require a boost now before the year ends, ranging from infrastructure and energy to other major projects. Tender procedures need to be launched on building Vlora airport, the new Thumane-Rrogozhina highway, the photovoltaic park, along with a number of other equally important development projects all over the country.

The most recent report shows that progress has been also made in providing winter tents to shelter the quake-affected families. Some 68 such tents have been supplied to families in Manes and some 460 more tents are expected to be distributed today.

More than 92 percent of the quake-affected families whose homes have been seriously damaged by the tremor have been already provided rental housing assistance by Tirana Municipality and we ask the remaining affected families to apply under this housing program. We have yet to receive information on the number of housed families in the Municipality of Vora, while the situation seems somehow a bit more difficult due to the lack of available apartment houses to make available to the affected families.

Call for purchase of apartment houses is being prepare to be launched and this is only a matter of days. It is very important to inform the public that a call will be launched for the purchase of apartment houses, with the government asking the construction firms to offer their unsold apartments, but at a lower price tag. All builders that have a number of unsold apartments should clearly know this is not time for business and if we are to consider the ceiling price we are going to set according to the market analysis – and I mean a low ceiling price – we will proceed with the purchase, otherwise we will not, because it is not time to purchase apartments in order for the builders to increase their profits.

Some 103 experts’ teams are currently working around the clock to assess damages in the three hardest-hit districts, along with a considerable number of foreign experts who are assisting in the post-earthquake damage assessment process.

As for the action plan on demolition and rubble cleaning, some 33 seriously damaged buildings have been already razed down, five more others are in the process of demolition. Cleaning process continues simultaneously, along with the collection of needed documents for the ongoing investigations launched by prosecutors.

At least 155 buildings have been classified as high risk buildings and a large number of police officers have been mobilized to guard them, but they should be withdrawn as soon as possible, because they can’t guard buildings forever. We should make sure we divide duties and balance work volume and deliver higher quality work at a faster pace as we try to take the process of demolishing the seriously damaged buildings forward, by employing private companies and their vehicles.

The procedure on issuing the construction permits should be unified and the work to repair damaged buildings should kick off immediately. We should not waste further time in terms of work to repair damaged buildings.

The National Rebuilding Committee will convene on Monday. All Committee members have been notified and we will unveil a plan during the meeting. We should also share workload with the humanitarian organizations that should start to disburse their funding. Basically, the division of work is clear.

As for their involvement in the ongoing operations on the ground, given that the urban areas account for the largest and most complex share of work as far as rebuilding is concerned and given that these organizations are experienced in building individual family homes, we will share the construction process to let them build individual homes that should meet safety and living standards and their performance will be supervised.

The Albanian Development Fund, in its capacity as the institution tasked with implementing the entire Rebuilding Program, together with the chair of the Committee, should draft a clear map on action plans and deadlines to take the process definitely forward.

The funding mechanism should be clear in terms of transparency, so the overall financial management of the entire process, including the state budget money, the donors’ funding, either the donations received via the unique address, or the donations made by various countries and the European Union, and the funding received from their donations, despite the implementation capacities of each stakeholder, the financial monitoring and transparency should be done jointly.

The Housing Entity should urgently join the process by directly collaborating with the Albanian Development Fund. The head of the Housing Entity should immediately become available to the Rebuilding Programme, making also available all financial, human and material resources and making sure its plans integrate with the Rebuilding Programme.

The work on drafting special law on implementation of the Rebuilding Programme is underway and progressing well. Time is very tight, so intense work is needed to make sure that we can pass the special law in Parliament on December 19th.

In the meantime, a request asking Parliament to postpone the state of emergency should be prepared so that all institutions are legally bound to the process.

The Minister of Culture should prepare the report in collaboration with the Development Fund. The Fund should also cooperate with the local government authorities of the Municipalities to draft a report on the territories where the construction works will take place, in order to avoid property issues. We have been referring to the state-owned properties, but the so-called “catch whatever you can” has been operating while we have been dealing with other issues and therefore each property should be verified by the Immovable Property Registration Office so that we are not taken by surprise.

Such a report should complete and be ready by next week and it should include data on the territory, the status of each property and every other required data in terms of seismic activity, the kind of buildings we can construct etc.

 

The families currently accommodated in hotels will move out of hotels after the New Year’s Eve. Accommodating other people in hotels will be now limited and carefully because there might be individuals who may try to abuse by claiming they are homeless.

More than 4000 people, coming from the hardest-hit families, are currently housed in hotels. The families accommodated in hotels and other families will be offered two options: the rental bonus, including a cash aid to cover transport cost either from Durres or Thumane, as transport is a serious issue for the majority of these families. The other option is that we find them a house to rent and the government will cover the rent cost.

Hotels should begin to empty in January, because this is the accord we have reached. All the more so now that we have come up with alternatives, as they could stay longer if there were no alternatives. Now we have the alternative, we have the funding for the alternative and we need to move forward.

It is important that every family benefiting rental bonus are fully verified. We should make sure that no unaffected family seeks to benefit.

Don’t forget that December 15 is the final deadline to house all hardest-hit families. The process for this families should definitely complete and they are all provided shelter by then. The children I met last night should also be provided housing. Of course, we should find a way to look after one of the two, whose mother is still in hospital and has lost the rest of family members. He should be housed and a caretaker should look after him, because he can’t live alone. His uncle lives in Great Britain and is temporarily looking after him. However, he will be provided long-term housing and the house will be registered by his name. He will be the house owner, but we should make sure he is also provided the needed care.

None of the families previously living in the now collapsed apartment buildings will return back there. It would be terrifying for them. All of them will move here.

Projects on constructing school buildings should be designed as soon as possible. The worst-damaged school buildings will be demolished and new ones will be built on their site, while the less-damaged ones will undergo reconstruction process. All these should be done quickly.

Concluding, I would like to remind each of you about areas under the government’s custody plan, in addition to what the emergency management office or the civil emergency services are already doing. We should compile a list of the needs and the affected families in the municipality of Vora. The camp in Vora, although it meets the housing conditions, it can’t stay there forever, so we have to make sure that people there relocate. The same goes over the families in Durres, Lezha, and Kurbin. So, please, please complete all the components of the long-term transfer and accommodation until new homes are built.

Remarks by the head of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Emergencies, Bledi Çuçi: The number of people currently housed in hotels, tents and social care centres is over 13,000. There is still a small number of people housed in school gyms.

With the situation gradually returning to normality, a demand increase has been observed over the past few days, especially in the hardest-hit area of Durres. The Municipality of Durres will make a decision to provide rental bonus and the process of housing the affected families in rental homes and other housing premises will start soon.

We are on track in terms of infrastructure and preparing the final needs report according to the methodology of the EU, the United Nations and the World Bank. Yesterday I had a meeting with representatives of all three organizations and we agreed to go on with this methodology. I believe a final report according to this standard will be produced by January.

As far as the process of demolition is concerned, a serious commitment by all firms contributing to the process has been observed. All the rubble will be removed and the entire hit area will be cleaned by next week.

Work is being closely coordinated with the Prosecutor’s Office and the Judicial Police so the process is proceeding normally.

A growing interest is being shown by builders, construction companies and investors that have built the damaged buildings. As many as 18 private companies in Durres have expressed readiness and have already launched procedures to start work to repair damaged buildings. Mayors have been urged to set up workers’ teams to repair lightly –damaged buildings, because, according to foreign experts, it would take just minor repair work to make a large number of apartment buildings inhabitable again.