Hello everybody!
This process has been one of our priorities from the very first day we took office. Together with Artan, the General Director, we have discussed since the first days on the necessity to unblock this process and to put an end to a very-long delay of which you are witnesses, as are hundred and thousand Albanian families.
After a 6-month period spent to find folders, arrange documents and do the inventory of Shaban’s hideout, and after many years in which people’s applications were left in the streets, we worked intensively for one year to take this process forward. Today, we can say on the one hand that we have done in one year more than 10 thousand legalizations compared to those done by the previous government in the past eight years. But, of course, this is not a consolation because comparing to them and feeling good for having done more means having a big problem with respect to people’s ambitions and to the future. The comparison applies only to show how little has been done in all these years and how much we can do.
The process has taken a path that we can define normal. The number of files handled and the number of free legalizations will increase every month. We believe that there will be an extraordinary leap in relation to the past eight years within this term. Today’s example is sufficient. You know that residents of this municipality have historically, and to be honest, blindly voted for the DP. They have done this for reasons you know, and it’s hard for me to understand them, but it doesn’t matter. If there are in Rrashbull 5500 applications, among which your applications, relative to the period from 2006 to 2013, in eight years the Democratic Party has legalized in this area only 59 building. They couldn’t even do 60. But, there is worse, because from these 59 buildings the majority are not homes, but rather businesses, warehouses, gas stations, motels.
They managed to legalize in eight years only 21 thousand buildings across Albania, and the majority of them, about 2/3 of them, is unfortunately businesses that in most cases have been legalized to the detriment of the community, to the detriment of society, to the detriment of the state budget. They are building built in the middle of the street, on irrigation or drainage canals, on monuments of culture heritage, in green or sport spaces, only because, it is understood, legalizing businesses meant more interesting bribes. Meanwhile, legalizing the homes of those who came here from their towns for a better life would require a lot of effort, although I am convinced that every one of you has their one story with bribes, payments and endless delays.
Just to make a small comparison. If here in Rrashbull 59 buildings were legalized in 8 years, most of which were business, we are distributing today, here 1200 free legalizations, and all of them are for homes. Basically, on this day we exceed the number of 7 thousand legalizations in the new municipality of Durres only. Of course, there is still a lot to do. If we look at what we have to do, we are still far from the destination; but if we look at what we have done in 18 months compared to what has been done in 8 years and in 18 years, there is no doubt that we are on the right direction for every family who wants this country to have a state, to have equal norms for everyone, so that everybody will pay for electricity – not as it used to be that some pay while others play the fool and make a fool of those who pay – and all those have built their homes for a better life, but who live in informal settlements, the majority of which are poor areas both economically and from the point of view of infrastructure, can become owners of their homes. This doesn’t mean only the legalization of their hard work and savings, but it is also an opportunity to transform this real estate into a warranty to get a loan and open a farm, start a small business, support the studies of your children. So, this capital that you have paid, but which is today practically dead, will be transformed in a circulating capital as any owner of an immovable property does. This is a big change that the legalization process will bring to your lives and to the lives of all those whose properties will be legalized.
Our commitment has remained unchanged. We will do free legalizations in all informal areas. But this is not all. Today this community is not an orphan anymore, it is not at the mercy of God and of the opportunities given carelessly by the local administration. So far you have been part of a community that will enter history as a municipality where a big national and public asset, which is the territory by the sea, has suffered an unprecedented destruction. It will also enter history as one of the municipalities where an unprecedented barbarity has built buildings on the hills. Only barbarians can build buildings on the hills, and only they can give permission to build on the hills. And when it came to legalizations and citizens services, you know better than me that by voting the DP, the DP and only the DP you got nothing back from the huge investment you have made. And what happened in the end? Absolutely nothing.
I believe that on June 21 you will be part of a totally new history. A new history that begins for the entire country, thanks to the administrative reform, and which begins for this municipality and for every municipality that are part of the municipality of Durres. For everyone who can see with their own eyes and think by themselves, and not according to SHQUP, it will be enough to see the extraordinary transformation happened in Durres in the last years, and especially in the last 18 months, to understand that what happened there will certainly happen here as well; to understand that if in the eyes of citizens od Durres this city is today more beautiful, cleaner, more hopeful than it has never been in the last 20 years, these municipalities will be the same in the next 4 years. I am not saying that a miracle will happen in the next 4 years, but I assure you that 4 years later all of you and all of those who invest their faith in the vote for Vangjush Dako will not regret it, as many of those might regret today investing their faith in the flagpole of the Democratic Party.
I know that not everyone will regret it. If they weren’t fool, they would not be with the DP. The important thing is that they also will see and touch the radical change that will happen. We will not be satisfied only with the legalization papers. We will make investments like those unimaginable investments started only 18 months ago, in the new Durres as we call it, or the Marshland as the DP people call it. They have always been voted there, and they still call it marshland because they want it to be a marshland. Because for them, the more people live in a marshland, the easier they can lie to them. Because the better people are, the more difficult it is to lie to them. Look at the new Durres and go to the DP’s Marshland to understand what will happen here and in all the new municipalities. We have a vision, we have a program and we have the determination to transform the life of communities. Every city we have ruled, we have shown facts. Vangjush Dako is an example, is a model and one more strong reason to believe that it is not only about one person, but it is about a vision and a project.
Just tell me one example of theirs, one municipality. Look at Rrashbull: an apocalyptic view. We came here two years ago to have a meeting during the campaign. I am here today and nothing has changed. The only difference is that you and I are two years older. Tell me about a municipality, but there is nothing you can say and nothing we can say. Just imagine that the best they have is the one in Tirana. You come and go to Tirana. Have you seen something that has been done in these 4 years? Nothing! Zero! You can say, at least he didn’t do bad. Sure, half of the bad did nothing. They slept for 4 years. How can you trust your vote to them, and what for?
Now that they are in campaign they say they will reduce the electricity cost. Who will do this? Grida? And how will she do this? They say they will tear up the map of the administrative reform, so we will go back to municipalities. How will Grida tear up the map? The vote of June 21 is neither for reducing electricity costs nor for tearing up the map. These are not issues handled by the municipality. The vote of June 21 consists in: how many legalizations will be done? How many canals will be cleaned and be available for those who want to work the land? – they cannot do it now because there is now water, and they are flooded after heavy rainfalls because there are no drainage canals. – How many nurseries, kindergartens, schools will be built and how many of the current ones will be improved? Will there be more and better health centers? Will there be more means of transport? What about waste? Will the system be improved, or waste will go from one municipality to another? Waste has been going back and forth for 21 years because there are no landfills, and the environment, the land and children’s lungs are being polluted ever since.
That is what the vote of June 21 is for. We have a program and answers for all these. They don’t even mention these, because they have nothing to say and don’t know what to do. If they knew, they would show us one example and tell us that they will do here what they did there. That’s why they’re going after Tirana because they believe that in doing so they will fool people and all those who say that many other cities will be like Tirana, Durres, Korce or Elbasan. But people are not fool, thank God. That’s why I believe that we are totally in the right directions.
On June 21 everyone should ask themselves a very simple question. The democrats as well. I am not telling they should become socialists. We are enough and do not need more. But you should ask yourself: what am I voting for? Am I voting for my child to have a nursery, or am I voting for the orphaned children of Sali in SHQUP? If I am voting because I want a nursery for my child, then I will not look at the party’s banner but I will vote for Vangjush Dako, the one who builds nurseries. But if you vote for the orphaned children of Sali in SHQUP, this is another story and you can go on and wait endlessly for everything, as have done those who are here today to receive the legalization permits. And there are many of them. They have waited to receive them from the other one, but I am sorry. You will have them from me.
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1200 legalized homes after long years of waiting are the newest reality of Rrashbull. The results of an intensive work by the Directorate of ALUIZNI in Durres culminated today with the distribution of certificates for residents of this area, at the presence of Prime Minister Edi Rama.
5500 applications for legalizations were submitted during the 8 years of the previous government in this municipality, which has traditionally voted the right wing. 59 buildings were legalized from these applications, and most of them were businesses. While in one year, legalizations made only in the municipality of Durres amount to 7000.
Prime Minister Rama and authorities of ALUIZNI gave heads of households the much waited legalization permits. Some people who have immigrated in the neighbor countries said they were optimistic, because they are finally seeing the much waited change in Albania. One of them, Vasil Meta, told the Prime Minister while receiving the certificate: “I have been an immigrant for 20 years. I have never seen this change before. Things are changing with this government. I applied for legalization 6 years ago.”
Many of the certificates were given to wives and daughters of the heads of households. The Prime Minister took the occasion to convey the message that people must be aware of the very important role that women have in family and society.
