Rama Government always acts in a haphazard manner, with always propaganda in the center. Everything is done in an amateurish way, without studies and without planning.
You can find projects and programs costing up to hundreds of millions of euros authorized without any examination or analysis and without any economic, technical, or administrative discourse. Although the problem in itself is old, the Rama Government has been reduced into a completely privatized government, where everything is determined by the reactions, instincts, and momentary impulses of the leaders.
The latest case of such an approach is the issue of certification. While the Municipality of Tirana decided to contract hundreds and thousands of euros on new technology for the issuance of certificates, the government decided to render certificates themselves unnecessary. At the same time it is unknown what will happen to the millions of dollars of already existing certification contracts.
A few months ago Mayor Veliaj raised the concern of the queues and costs citizens had to deal with when requesting certificates, and he promised to ease the process in which certificates are issued.
The solution he proposed was the e-kiosk project: the placement of electronic, self-service kiosks in different parts of the city. E-kiosks would connect with the electronic system of the civil registry, whereby every citizen could print his own certificate.
It is unknown how they arrived at this solution without any public analysis. It is also unknown how this project was prepared, but the fact remains that on August 29, 2017, the Municipality of Tirana opened a 200 million lekë tender for this project.
The office of the Civil Registry and the electronic register of citizens, including the service that issues certificates, are administered and subordinated to central government. The offices of the Civil Registry merely operate physically near the local administrative areas. For this reason it is still unclear why this project was entrusted to Municipality of Tirana, which has no legal mandate over the register.
However, only a few weeks after the tender announcement for certificate self-printing project, Prime Minister Edi Rama said that certificates will no longer be needed, as the government is planing to totally change the use of Civil Registry documents.
On October 5, 2017, the Prime Minister announced the start of a project that would withdraw 24 documents currently required by government institutions from citizens when offering different services towards them. The list of documents that will no longer be needed include personal and family certificates.
On this occasion, the Prime Minister said:
The citizens should no longer be asked for certificates. They should refuse the request of any office for certificates on paper. The printed personal and family certificates have been withdrawn. The state offices must print them through e-Albania database without requesting a penny. Also withdrawn are the declarations for pensions or healthcare cards. After 27 years, the citizens have become tired of long queues just to take pieces of declarations.
It is unclear what will will happen to the 200 milion tender, now that there is almost no need for certificates at all.
This history of amateurism and of haphazard approach is completed with yet another fact. Two years ago the government spent public funds on another project concerning certificates.
On May 15, 2015, Prime Minister Rama presented the creation of an online service portal, e-Albania, supposed to eliminate corruption and save the time and effort of the citizens:
The portal is part of a project connected with a program to transition from a state serving with people, into a state serving online.
Citizens will have no need to go into an office, but rather receive their service online. Also this project reduces many costs such as time, money, and others”.
However, what is certain so far is that from the citizen’s money millions of euros have been abused to solve this problem.
