The Edi Rama government has been accused of employing over 13,000 people on temporary contracts in state departments since 2017 at a cost of EUR 55 million.
In addition to this, some 81,000 additional people were employed by municipalities at a cost of EUR 92 million over two years.
Albania is effectively under single-party rule following the 2019 local elections.
These allegations were made by former Democratic Party MP Dhurata Cupi. She said that these people that have been employed are “Socialist Party militants” and that employing them is a misuse of taxpayers’ money.
“EUR 147 million euros have been used to pay party and electoral salaries. It’s more money than Edi Rama gave to help people face the pandemic with his financial aid packages,” Cupi said.
It is common practice in Albania that when the government changes, so do large numbers of civil servants depending on their political affiliation.
An American citizen who has been working with a local NGO for the last ten years told Exit that it was really hard to try and work with state departments and Municipalities.
“Every time you make progress with an institution and then the government or political party of the Municipality changes, you go back to square one. You have to start training them again or re-negotiating projects as quickly as you can before it all changes again!”
One state employee ‘Agim’, told Exit last year that most of their 80-person strong department were on temporary contracts. Most of them were party loyalists but the temporary contracts were used as a way to ensure that they remain in line. He explained that under these contracts, they can lose their job at any moment and that many had because of political activities.
