The Albanian blackout syndrome

By Alba Cela
Here we are once again, trapped in the dark cold and boring nights of the Albanian winter. It’s the sixteenth season in a row with eyes glued to the clear sky wishing for rain. Sixteen years are not a short time. In most economic schemes they represent the long term. In 2004, an independent study published by the UNDP and the AIIS, showed that the energy crisis translates immediately into ‘missed production’ or a hit to GDP growth. The study also listed recommendations ranging from the increase of systematic imports to the construction of a new hydropower plant. None of this seems to have been taken into account. If UNDP and AIIS were to write the study once again they would have no need to change their section on ’causes of the crisis.’ What’s even worse a new manipulative strategy seems to have been designed in order to coerce the country into the passive acceptance of the conditions. KESH refuses to release the regular hours of shortages, making any possible plan to cope with the hourly ration, impossible. I wonder if they think that by irritating the people hard enough they will submit and say “Just tell us when you will cut the power and we won’t complain.”
Stagnant problems and structural mishaps stand in the way of all reform in the country. Without energy there is no fuel to progress, without change there is no energy. One cannot blame a single actor. The government fails to invest in the major infrastructure, KESH fails to be transparent and financially stable, the Albanian consumer fails to pay regularly, the EU fails to understand that we desperately need the Bulgarian power plant and finally God fails to send us rain! On a final account it seems this crisis reflects a wider one, the one that stands in the pillars of our politics and mismanagement of economy, the crisis within all of us.