An operation to clean the inert waste and solid materials of the demolished buildings kicked off today with the assistance of army troops on the site which will host the post-earthquake reconstruction projects in the town of Shijak. Prime Minister Edi Rama visited Shijak along with the Minister of State for Reconstruction, Arben Ahmetaj, Minister of Defence Olta Xhaçka, and the Mayor of Shijak, Elton Arbana, to see firsthand the operation to remove the demolition waste.

“We kicked off the cleaning-up operation today and more municipal teams and army troops will join this effort in the coming day so that entire process completes as soon as possible. Entire area has become a construction site and we will complete the process of demolition and move ahead with the cleanup of whole area, because it was impossible to start cleaning operation at once,” Shijak Mayor explained, adding that damage assessment process in the Municipality of Shijak has already completed.

Reconstruction Minister Ahmetaj pointed out that work to construct private individual homes in the Municipality of Shijak is set to begin by end of June. “Local government authorities have acted quickly to complete the assessment and the point-based process in all administrative units, which is a must in technical terms,” Reconstruction Minister Ahmetaj said.

Government will allocate and disburse the compensation fund for the quake-affected families whose homes have sustained repairable damages. “When buildings have suffered structural damages, then the Municipality should take over their reconstruction. This is because if a household is provided the grant and doesn’t use the money to repair the structural damage, the building might risk to collapse and it is the responsibility of the local government authorities to deal with this,” the Minister of State for Reconstruction said.

On his part, Prime Minister Edi Rama stated that all the families affected by the devastating earthquake that hit the country on Nov 26 last year with benefit what they are entitled to. “This week we will approve the decision to allocate compensation according to categories. We will disburse direct funds to affected citizens. It is a considerable amount that I believe not only covers the needs, but covers them all well according to the levels. It’s pretty much just for Shijak. If we take it all in turn, the total amount made available for the affected citizens alone goes to nearly $70 million. Meanwhile, it is a completely different story when it comes to the families, whose houses have sustained irreparable damages and we will continue provide housing and paying their rent. It is a big volume, but we’ve said from day one and today we’re even more convinced than yesterday that we’re going to handle all cases one by one. Understandably, the only thing we can’t do is financing patience. Patience cannot be financed so we happen to run out of patience time and again. However, it is up to us to go through all this because of the huge amount of work ahead of us and the courage needed to put up with the curses along the way,” the Premier said.