Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the signing of the Agreement on lending for the provision of public services between the World Bank and the Government:

Thank you Tahseen!

This moment is important not only because an agreement is being signed, but because a first stage of crucial importance is being achieved in addressing a crucial problem.

Our crucial problem has been and remains corruption in the relations between citizens and state, in the relations between every individual who very rightfully asks for a service with someone else who very unrightfully asks for bribery in the counter.

I have been convinced since the very beginning, and I remain convinced that the fight against this form of corruption is first of all a fight to modernize the system. It’s not people who corrupt the system, but it’s the system that corrupts people. And if we want people to not be corrupted, we need to build a system that will prevent people from being corrupted. In this view, we have addressed the major problem of the relations between the individual and the state in every point of contact, in order to transform it from a relation thoroughly sullied by corruption into a transparent relation providing citizens much quicker and better services, and above all to prevent them from having to choose the option of corruption because of the impossibility of receiving differently what they are due. Because in the end, corruption is nothing but an option, and if the state is inexistent or is unable to meet citizens’ needs, corruption is a very enviable option as a solution to a problem which otherwise would have remained unsolved.

Of course, this is easy to be said and difficult to be done as a general rule, but in this case it is easy to say and extremely difficult to do because what we have inherited doesn’t have the shape of a state, but is a shapeless state.

And actually, in order to provide public services that are quick, of good quality and transparent we must first of all have available a solid and integrated data base.

In our small and dear country, there are endless bundles of documents, registers and folders, and meanwhile the information interconnection is extremely poor, not to say inexistent.

We have inherited a situation where the number of documents, certificates, licenses, authorizations and guarantees is many times higher than it should be.

Therefore, we have been focused since a year and a half in laying the foundations of this project that will bring a radical and final transformation of the relations between the state and citizens, because it will enable the state to serve citizens and will enable citizens to have the state within reach on their smartphones at the end of this process.

And though it may seem utopian, this is now totally feasible. We have nothing to invent. We only have to implement a process by learning from those who are ahead of us and by using technology in order to fill the big gap separating a backward country because of a state without any shape and ability, from other countries where the state does not only have a form, but it is also able to respond immediately to its citizens.

This is not an easy process, but it has already entered the right path and this is why we are receiving today this funding which will enable us to enter the second stage of this process. Starting from the separation between offices providing services and counters, and by transforming counters not only into points of contact for citizens, but also into points of service advocating citizens’ rights and at the same time generating relations connected to the performance of the service offices.

Counters will not depend from institutions, but will be separate institutions. There will be a whole network of a new mechanism that will function as spokesperson of citizens at the office, in addition to serving citizens in every moment of contact.

On the other hand, we are about to begin with the process of a thorough digitalization and integration of the database, with an aim at coming to the point where citizens will be provided services without having to travel to the counter, and without having to wait for days, weeks and months for the documentation to come back to him from the counter.

It is a big ambition that we want to fulfill in a short time. And I am convinced that the fulfillment of this ambition will transform this country into a normal country in view of the relations between citizens and the state, in addition to definitely destroy this level of corruption. An endemic corruption that has been extended like a disease throughout the skin of the state’s body, and which characterizes backward countries where the state is not able to meets citizens’ needs. In addition, it will give us the opportunity after over 20 years to be able to end this issue once and for all and not to feel outside of Europe while being in Europe.

This will bring also a big transformation in the relations that business has with the state, because on the one hand the drastic decrease of required documents and on the other hand the speed in issuing licenses or necessary documents will create totally new conditions to do business in our country. And the basic principle, which is very important for us in this process, is to reach as soon as possible the day when every document that the citizens need in order to be issued within the state and by the state any kind of authorization or final document, will be provided to citizens by the state itself. So, whereas today, before receiving a service, citizens have to go from an office to another, from a counter to another, from and institution to another in order to collect up to 17 or 20 documents for certain services, it will be responsibility of the state to issue all these documents to citizens. So citizens will submit an application to the respective counter, and then it will be responsibility of the counter to contact the respective institutions to integrate the documentation and to give citizens what they need.

The same applies to enterprises. We have inherited today a scandalous situation where, for any kind of operation, entrepreneurs need to produce all sorts of documents from all sorts of official sources or public counters. The state will undertake to produce all these documents on behalf of the enterprises. While the entrepreneur will only receive the respective service in the respective counter.

This can be done neither in a day nor in a year. Therefore we had to wait for a year and a half to reach this second stage. Because, I repeat it, this has to do with the database. You can serve nothing in the cafeteria, if you have no ingredients in the kitchen. Therefore, by putting all ingredients of the service where they need to be, and by creating the conditions for a quick interaction among data to provide a service we create a precondition for providing a service, which is quick, of good quality and transparent.

I believe that at the end of this term we will have tangible results of this process, and within five years, without the slightest doubt, the citizens of this country will have the state on their phones. While counters will be just a second option to provide assistance in a focused manner, because in parallel we are working on launching the National Center of Public Services that will provide assistance in a focused manner. People will not need any more to go to every office and collect the papers they need in order to receive a service. The service will be focused, having its center of gravity in Tirana, and will be extended across the new administrative units in the Republic of Albania by means of the new technology.

We have made very important steps with the portal of the government services, which provides a significant number of services. We solved the problem related to the payment of electricity bills, and the problem of the endless lines to pay electricity bills, by giving citizens many options to pay them without having to go to the OSHEE counters. We want and will do the same for all other services in the Republic of Albania.

We saw a few days ago of the extraordinary flow of applications in the National Registration Center, following the latest operation we have undertaken against informality. Actually, the National Registration Center was since long ready to provide this services online, without having entrepreneurs to go there and stay in line, and wait for hours. This means that in this process people need also to be psychologically prepared in order to understand that what may seem much easier and realistic to be received directly at the counter, can be as well received online through computers or smartphones.

I want to express my sincere thanks to the World Bank team here in Tirana, the leader of the mission, and of course the regional director who couldn’t be here today, but who is an irreplaceable partner for us as much as the World Bank mission in Tirana itself is a irreplaceable partner. We have built a real dialogue. We have built a joint-team work, we have played our role in increasing the speed of the World Bank, – we must say that, – because the World Bank is a sort of a very big machinery whose mileage complies with the road conditions. If the road conditions allow it to go faster, it goes faster; if there are holes and obstacles on the road, it goes slower. Meanwhile, we have paved very quickly every road where the machinery of the World Bank must be put into motion, in order to avoid the consequences of the low mileage to which the Bank got used in the last years, through no fault of its, but because there was no speed on the other side. I know that they will never admit it, but they know it is true. So, we have transformed the World Bank in Albania into a much quicker and much more efficient institution. This is our merit, but it was also our fault, not ours as government, but of our predecessors who lowered the World Bank mileage to zero, and it even stopped while writing reports that everything was going fine but nothing could be seen in the horizon.

Many thanks again.

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An “Agreement on lending for the provision of public services” was signed today in the Hall of Maps between the World Bank and the Republic of Albania.

32 million dollars will allow access to the phase of the intensive implementation of the reform of public services.

The agreement was signed by the representative of the World Bank for Albania Tahseen Sayed and Minister of Finance Shkëlqim Cani.