The newly-built residential neighbourhood in the administrative unit of Ndroq, Tirana municipality, on Tuesday welcomed back the local quake-affected families that move into safer, more beautiful and more resilient homes than the ones they lost in the tragic night of the devastating earthquake that hit Albania two years ago. 

The residential complex was built under the ongoing post-earthquake reconstruction programme that is turning the natural disaster into a transformation and development potential for the rural areas and the affected neighborhoods across the country.

A total of 74 single-family homes have been built in the new residential complex in Ndroq. The new dwellings feature abundant living spaces. Construction of a new health care centre and a kindergarten is set to finish soon, completing a whole well-organized and model neighborhood with modern infrastructure that meets contemporary standards and the needs of the community.

Prime Minister Edi Rama today attended the handover ceremony, where the house keys were distributed to local quake-affected families. 

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Hope you enjoy moving into your new homes. You are the owners of these new properties as you are all granted the due ownership certificates and as such you can rent, put them up for sale or inherit just like any other legitimate property owner.

You owe nothing to anyone and you are not obliged to pay even a single penny back. The only thing you owe and should do is to make your gardens grow and flourish and create lush green spaces.

Construction of the new healthcare centre and a kindergarten will be completed soon. As you already know, you also own the land area where your old dwellings used to be located prior to the earthquake.

Post-earthquake reconstruction programmes do not deliver houses for free to the quake-affected families in neighboring Italy and Greece or in Turkey, countries that have been hit by a series of earthquakes. They provide housing to the affected households under a soft loans programme. 

We have provided the new houses to the affected families totally for free!

We are not stronger, we are not wealthier, we are not better than them, but we decided to deliver on the post-earthquake reconstruction programme faster than any other country and totally for free, exactly because we are not wealthier.

If we were to be a government of wealthy people, the Reconstruction Programme wouldn’t be ever launched and wouldn’t happen as a reconstruction programme thanks the increase in tax rate on the wealthy people, and cutting to zero the tax rate on low-income earners and providing houses for free to the families.

However, on the other hand, we didn’t demolish those houses and we will not continue demolishing and throwing them out on the street, regardless of their political affiliations and obsession and regardless of the political party they vote for. We are the government of all Albanians, and not only of those who vote for the Socialist Party, and we will build new houses for these families totally for free.

If we still encounter delays with the reconstruction process this is because of the mishmash triggered by those serving in justice system previously and the hodgepodge with land and property ownership rights caused by judges and prosecutors who take whole communities hostage, just like a judge has done by blocking the work on construction of the remaining apartments in the town of Laç. This is the system with judges having their last say. The reconstruction process has progressed in tandem with a process of falsifications and complaints by totally corrupt judges, who are well aware of the fact that they will fail in the vetting process. This is the reason some of the projects have been delayed. However, we will not stop until the last quake-affected family moves into a new house. This is for sure. We have been facing such problems in Tirana, Durres, as well as in the whole areas where construction projects are underway!

As many as 29 new schools and kindergartens have been built in Kamze alone! The total number of educational facilities is higher than all the schools and kindergartens constructed by the previous governments combined, although they level allegations, slanders and claim they are defending Albanian citizens.

We are immensely happy that this community here, Socialists, Democrats and everyone else are now moving into these new and beautiful living spaces.