Arvizu: Reforms for eliminating corruption

In four years, these projects that aimed to help the war against corruption, according to the US Ambassador Alexander Arvizu and the Prime Minister Berisha, might be classified as success history. 100% of the Albanian procurements today are electronically managed, the business register, the licenses and permits are given in a single teller, and the tax system is also electronic, which reduces time, expenses and the possibilities for corruption.

Arvizu declared that there is still too much to do in the war against corruption, although what has been achieved until now with the help of the US government was completed in a record time. While for the Prime Minister Sali Berisha, the 30 million USD of the US government have turned into hundreds of millions of profits for the Albanians, due to the transparent tax management.

“I think that it is significant the fact that the fruits of this partnership, these achievements, are much more than a simple pencil on a paper. These are the results that the Albanians, especially the businessmen, can really feel today”, Arvizu declared.

The Prime Minister added:

“The benefits from these projects have not been felt only by the businessmen and officials, but also by all Albanians throughout the country, who see that the public money is turning into infrastructure; it is pulling them out of the medieval infrastructure that they had. This was made possible with these 5.2 billion USD that have been collected”.

Albania could not benefit the next program of the US government, which provided much bigger funds, because the law for the Administration Court has not passed yet in Parliament, which is a part of the Prag Program of the “Millennium Challenge”.
 
But Ambassador Arvizu and Prime Minister Berisha see that there is still room for cooperation between the majority and the opposition in the war against corruption, and one of this is the immunity.

“Reflecting about the report of the European Commission and the road we have ahead, I wanted bring to our attention the declaration of Ambassador Sequi, who said that the parties should see this as an opportunity for reassessing and finding ways to progress with the EU integration agenda. War against corruption is about the submission of all people with high administrative positions – regardless their partial affiliations or their posts – to the same rigorous control and of the same strict standards. No one should abuse with the privileges of the immunity, and no one should have immunity that allows people to steal from the common wealth without being punished”, Arvizu declared.

Berisha accepted as a cooperation option not only the approval of this law with qualified majority, as asked by the Commission of Venice, but also for amending the Constitution for the immunity limitation. He invited the Socialist Party to not condition this with other actions.

“I invite the opposition to leave our differences aside and come together where we can come together. I guarantee the opposition that I am ready to cooperate for each of these versions. Let us leave the conditionings aside, in order to remove immunity as soon as possible, to prove our responsibility to the Albanian citizens”, Berisha declared.

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