There is an important new legislative proposal that targets to fix some of the problems around a much debated issue in both political and public debates: Concessions. The parliamentary group of the Socialist Movement for Integration has drafted some changes to the law regulating concessions that aim at increasing the transparency, legitimacy and effectiveness of concessions and private-public partnerships.
First of all the proposal of the SMI, the king-maker party of the ruling coalition, establishes a key principle for the legitimacy of the procedure: the approval from the Parliament. The approval of the legislative, which foretells seeking approval from the position, would guarantee the longevity of the concession. Since the concessions are given for a long term duration the concession should be solid and not subject to the whims of changing administrations.
The involvement of the highest legislative body also provides the necessary extra guarantees that the selected service provider or investment provider has the best public interests in his plan. It increases the legitimacy of the procedure, providing even more incentives for the investors which would then not need to calculate extra political risks. Ultimately the approval from the Parliament would bring added transparency for the citizens and decrease the political debate surroundings them
Second the proposal includes specific measures to expand the number of the actors involved in the negotiations phase including in every case the Ministry of Finance as well as the State Advocate’s Office. Especially in the case of the later, the added value is indeed substantial. In addition, to providing valuable counsel, the State Advocate would be engaged in continuity and have an upper hand should the concession go sour and end up with a legal process.
Third the proposal highlights the need to uphold the ‘principle of the alternative’ prompting the state to consider other options when it receives an unsolicited offer for a service. Only after evaluating the other alternatives, such as public funds or tender procedure, and establishing that the concession is indeed the best way to go the procedure can start. This is a simple common-sense suggestion that has the potential to reduce the corruptive pressure.
This parliamentary initiative comes in an interesting context: the government has already given and is involved in an intensive search to give other concessions about services and tasks which are the core of governance and the very essence of state functioning. This is particularly true in the case of the tax collection concession, an idea unparalleled in any other country and very controversial.
Various investigative media have already published serious and thorough reports which raise many questions over the concessions given: both from the point of challenging their benefits for the public good and form the perspective of the motives behind the government willingness to grant them.
The idea of concessions per se as a way to develop the economy, to improve the services for the citizens and to raise standards in many sectors is not something we are against. However independent experts believe that it is very difficult to assess in many existing concessions how the services have been improved, fully provided or how the standard have risen.
Moreover we have many public cases in which concessionary contracts instead of improving the situation have been transformed into a heavy weigh pushing down the Albanian economy. Even worse insome cases they fit the profile of pure corruptive deals. Therefore the initiative of the SMI Parliamentary group responds to this existing context by putting forward concrete ideas to increase transparency and void the transformation of the concessions procedure into corruption instruments.
If the same financial and economic situation persists experts and financial institutions have warned that concessions could potentially worsen the chances for economic recovery.
For all the above reasons, the SMI initiative merits further public discussions, its principles should be supported.
