The Municipality of Berat will provide 24-hour potable water supply to its residents both in urban and rural areas within 2021. Intense work is currently underway to complete the final third stage of the project to upgrade the water supply network in Berat. Prime Minister Edi Rama, together with the Head of the National Agency for Water Supply and Sewerage and Waste Infrastructure, Alqi Bllako, and the Mayor of Berat Ervin Demo, visited the site that covers an area of 136 hectares.

The project starts in Gorica and it includes around 73 kilometres of internal and distribution network. Local residents have suffered water shortages and scarcity in availability, whereas no investment projects have been carried out to upgrade the water supply network since the’60s. “The project includes 54 kilometres of internal network and 1.9 kilometres of distribution line. Likewise, the entire supply network, around 13 km long, will be replaced in the area of Celepia and it will also include a main collector, secondary network and household supply connections. With the third stage of the project complete, we will be able to ensure 24-hour supply to all residents in Berat district by 2021,” Bllako said.

Once the investment completes, water meters will be installed in every household and businesses, helping the water supply utility improve its performance and revenue collection. “We will address the water supply problems in all rural areas within 2021. A completely new water supply network will be built in the main administrative units with higher density of population and the Municipality of Berat will practically provide potable water to around 90 percent of its population,” Demo said.

Meanwhile, work is also underway to construct the water supply system in Velabisht, a project set to complete within 2021.” This is a promise made in 2013 to ultimately address the water supply problem and ensure access to clean, affordable and reliable supply of water. It is essential to figure out that a project doesn’t start as soon as someone sees a bulldozer on the site. The true work begins with the analysis, feasible studies, the design and every other project-related procedure. In addition to that, it took us a tremendous work to emerge out of the huge debt hole during our first term in office and here we are today when we can openly state and tell everyone living in urban areas across the country, from Malësia e Madhe down to Saranda and Konispol, that the issue of 24-hour supply with potable water will be finally resolved in 2021,” PM Rama said. Putting emphasis to the question “why it took so long” the Premier said the current government is struggling to tackle the countless inherited problems from the past, just it was the case with this water supply system built in’60s and no upgrading projects have been implemented since then. These are the problems we inherit from the previous government.”