Corruption, the nasty word

TIRANA, Sep. 1 – “Corruption” is the daily most-heard word in
Albania’s political vocabulary these days — not from the
international reports or institutions, but from the local politicians.
That is something Albanians have gotten used to when the country is accused of doing little or not at all against corruption. That conclusion usually comes from reports prepared by the international institutions and tell the country it should really pay high attention if it wants now to become a member of the European Union.
But corruption is bad, nasty, really, when Albanians live it in their daily life. That means to them they need to pay or bribe different officials to achieve something normal, which is their right.
And they can rally do nothing in practice to fight it. Very often
common people prefer to pay a bribe instead of waiting for long hours or days to get cured, given a document, or service they are entitled to.
This is unfortunately the result of politics. Because politics in
post-communist Albania has always shown it plays a lot of political games and mentioning corruption has been one of their main ones.
Because politicians, or political parties exploit corruption as a tool in their political fight and that is all. They seem not to be so
serious when using that tool, or better say, they are very serious in using it only as a tool and not to take the corrupted to the justice or when they go to the prosecutor’s office, in most usual cases it is only a charge they want for litigation and not corruption.
Why, one would wonder. Because that is a political tool only to
attract the attention of their supporters (to keep strong their party ranks) and show to them the corrupted are only on the other side and they are determined to fight corruption.
That’s usually the case right before elections. Is it going to be
different this time? Hardly so!
The opposition started accusing cabinet ministers of hiding their
conflict of interests, and of being involved in businesses where they use their posts for profit.
The governing Democrats turned their accusations on the opposition leader, who is also mayor of Tirana, accusing him of asking for bribes when giving construction licenses.
For the moment, it seems only that first steps of check-and-balance have started in the initial stage with the government transparency authority and the prosecutor’s office starting the case of investigating some of those claims. Will there be any concrete results?
Let’s not be pessimistic, as any Albanian would be, and not give our verdicts ahead of time. But still common people listen to claims speaking of millions of dollars or euros that top officials enrich themselves while on post!
Is it true?! Can it be true?!
They get rich either because they played fair and square or due to their post. What if someone else, not in a public top post, would try to independently enter such businesses, would he/she be successful?
So common Albanians are listening to how they could be rich if they had a post. They really justify why our dear politicians get involved in politics: to get power and money.
True, very few of our politicians have been involved in businesses in the last two post-communist decades. But all of them may be considered rich in this country.
How? With their monthly salary? “Oh, come on… Everybody knows,” Albanians would say.
Well, let them hope of results, this time, in the fight against
corruption that politicians are talking about. And if no results come, well, it is again up to to the people. They are the ones who cast their vote for these politicians.
So be brave and hold on. If you are not pleased with them, any of them, or all of them, you have one piece of paper that can do
miracles. Hold it strongly and use it powerfully!