Competences of new municipalities, Rama: Local government, more powerful”

12/06/2015 00:00

The Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, started explaining the vision of
his government for the competences of the new 61 mayors, by saying that
what has been done so far was not a decentralization of the local
administration, but a division.

Rama used the aqueducts as example to show what past mistakes should be avoided in the future.

“It’s a shame that a country as rich of water as us has more problems with the drinking water than others, and we get flooded with every heavy rain”, Rama declared, adding that from January 2016, the new mayors will have bigger responsibilities with aqueducts.

Staff of health care, child care and civilian emergency institutions will now be under the local administration. The new local leaders will also have the competence to give property titles for farming terrains, with the hope to resolve the current property conflicts.

Regional Agriculture Directories will also change. The bigger trust to local governments will be followed by a bigger inspection from the central government, so that forests will not be damaged again by outgoing leaders.

The government expects from the new territorial reform to offer better services to citizens to also have a better control on the territory. After decentralization, they should start working with an unified urban planning,

The Prime minsiter said that the locl administration should create new development units with their revenues, while the government will support the connection between them.

But, the decentralization will have to sacrifice many current structures. According to the Prime Minister, the Prefecture should also be reviewed.

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