2010 Floods, government cut funds

The news published today on “Shqip” newspaper says:

“The reviewed budget of 2010 has issued 603 million ALL for in the irrigation, drainage and flood protection infrastructure, and also for embankments, dikes and reservoir rehabilitations. The rehabilitation of the Casi embankment, in Velipoje, has started only this year. The postponement for lack of funds brought a great cost in the floods of 2010.

It must be said that one of the main projects, the rehabilitation of the Casi Embankment,  Shkoder district, with a fund of 50 million ALL, has not been realized”, says the relation for the budget of 2010.

The Casi Embankment in Velipoje has a pump station that is being repaired this year with World Bank funds. Shkoder was hit by floods in the beginning of this year, causing damages of millions of Euros.

The government planned 1.7 billion ALL investments for managing the drainage and irrigation infrastructure in 2010. But with the economic slump in July 2010, the government reviewed the budget and reduced the investments for drainage and irrigation infrastructure to 647 million ALL (4.8 million EUR).

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Consumer Protection saw it reasonable to spend only 77% of this fund, which were completely insufficient for avoiding the floods.

The floods that hit the Sub-Shkoder area in January caused much greater costs than the maintenance investments.

It remains unclear the level of damage that the lack of investment has caused, but it is clear that the same situation is being repeated this year.

The reviewed budget has cut this year’s investments with almost 40% (from 3.76 billion to 2.67 billion ALL).

In the first semester of 2011, the Ministry of Agriculture realized only 3% of the yearly capital expenses for drainage and irrigation, promising to complete the investments in the three months that remain before the rains.

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