Reconstruction projects are well underway in the rural areas of Tirana Municipality. Keys to newly-built individual homes are being handed over every day to the families that lost their houses on the tragic night of Nov 26. Klement, his wife and their four-year old daughter, residents in the village of Baldushk, today received the keys to their new home from Prime Minister Edi Rama. They acknowledge that a new, better, more beautiful, bigger and safer house has been built over the rubble left by the earthquake. The family has been also provided the due documentation that make them owners of the new house.

“The house, construction of which we inspected few weeks ago, has now completed and it is a two bedroom new home for a family of three. Klement and his wife are extremely happy and excited as they are receiving the delivery document and every family will then provided the property ownership certificate once the procedures with the cadastre office complete. It is the up to the home owners to invest, use their property as collateral or carry out any other investment they wish,” Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj said.

The goal is to make sure that the majority of families that lost their homes because of the devastating earthquake on Nov 26 last year move into their newly-built houses by the New Year’s Eve. Intense work is underway to fulfil this objective.  “A total of 400 houses of similar building typology in Tirana municipality are set to complete ahead of Dec 31 and around 1000 more houses in other quake-affected municipalities. After the final assessment process by the administrative units in Tirana, the reconstruction program will also include construction of some 2000 other individual housing units,” the State Minister for Reconstruction Arben Ahmetaj said, adding that work to construct apartment buildings in Durres is already underway. “Second procurement phase was launched today for the construction of the apartment buildings in Durres. Two apartment buildings will be reconstructed initially right on the site where the previous buildings stood prior to the earthquake. We will receive the financial offers in the next seven days and I am convinced that work on the ground will kick off in 15 days’ time at most,” he said.

In a conversation with the new house owners and praising their example, PM Rama called for understanding of all affected families that are being through difficulties to show patience until construction of their new homes completes. This is actually a process that starts a lot earlier than the groundbreaking work begins. “You are a hard working man and you certainly understand this whole process, but there are some others who are a sort of ‘Facebook workers’  and have no idea of these things. The construction this house actually completed very quickly, but it took a whole long process and procedures before the construction work begun on the ground as the damage assessment process took place first, to be followed then with the design, the financing agreement, the tender process, the contract and the construction work. The process is much easier when it comes to the construction of the private individual houses, but procedures are more complex and it takes more time when it comes to mass construction projects, the apartment buildings. On the other hand, you have set an example for people living in the urban areas, because you were forced to sell your cow and adapt the cow barn into a living room for family until the new house was to complete. It is crucial for us to build the new houses in the rural areas as soon as possible, because many people are still living in tents, at their relatives or in temporary makeshift rooms, just like it was your case. But it takes patience. We are currently working to build the water supply system. The number of residents receiving 24-hour water supply has registered a ten-fold increase. A considerably large part of Tirana residents are now receiving 24-hour water supply. The rest have yet to receive water for 24 hours a day, yet the water availability for  them has increased significantly,” the Premier said.

PM Rama handled over the keys to the new house to the members of another neighbouring family, who used to live to their relatives after the Nov earthquake.