Mayor Erion Veliaj announced yesterday that the municipality will build 30 new schools in Tirana. During an electoral meeting in Kashar, Veliaj declared:
The Albanian government, our Prime Minister Edi Rama, has approved the co-financing with the Municipality of Tirana for 30 new schools, including 2 9-year schools and one middle school in the Kashar-Yzeberisht-Kombinat zone.
It appears that the lack of transparency about the Tirana masterplan, the lack of any realistic investment plan, and the ongoing election campaign, Veliaj has changed his previous declarations.
Because during the last few months, Veliaj has spoken more than once about 20 schools, rather than the 30 that he invented yesterday. For example, on September 13, 2016, Veliaj declared:
Within this mandate we will have 20 schools and finally we can remove the issue of schools working in two shifts from our vocabulary.
On October 16, 2016, he said: “Very soon we’ll begin wit the project of 20 new schools in all of Tirana,” while on March 7, 2017 he stated the same thing on Teacher’s Day.
No matter what the final number is that he will sell voters during the campaign, the schools will all be funded through a public–private partnership model, which will cause an increased burden on citizens for years to come.
