Rama: The merger brought more investments; municipalities didn’t get them on their own

Prime Minister Rama continued today in Berat the informational meetings as part of the public consultation on the administrative-territorial reform, focusing on the impact of the reorganization of local units on the provision of services to citizens.

The prime minister emphasized that this reorganization does not affect the provision of services in Poliçan, Dimal and other units, but aims at more efficient administration and creating greater opportunities for development and investment in the territory.

Rama: “Tell me what you think would be damaged if it becomes a municipality. When you tell me the road, you tell me the service — these don’t change. Services will not leave Poliçan, Dimal or anywhere. On the contrary, these don’t change. Relative to what you have, only one thing changes; you will not have an elected mayor. The building doesn’t change, the staff doesn’t change, the number of services provided doesn’t change — in the sense that it doesn’t decrease, since it must be increased. You say distance? What does distance have to do with it? Those services you receive today in Poliçan or Dimal, you will receive in the same place. So, municipality, city, administrative unit. And the city of Poliçan, the city of Dimal will have their own leader, will have their own councilors in the Municipal Council of the Berat municipality, with quotas.”

“Tell me another thing: are municipalities better off today or were they better when they were separate? I’ve heard these conversations ‘year after year’ at the time of the 2015 reform; ‘this will leave us, that will leave us; no, the distance; oh, how far Poliçan is, we are here at our municipality; how far the center of Ura is, we are at our municipality; we have this, we have that, we have the mayor of the municipality… Did anything of this nature happen? Are they today — have municipalities received more investments than they used to, or have they received fewer? Where did the municipalities’ investments come from? From themselves? They came from the merger.”