As a new day dawns in Albania, contracts are being signed, tenders are being allocated, public services and projects are being carried out with the precious help of the private sector and glorious projects are being presented in so-called public hearings halls filled with deputy ministers auditioning for their potential future careers in civil society.
Welcome to the PPP country! An imposing large scale project to build a new national stadium in Albania, on the premises of the old soccer stadium a declared cultural monument therefore protected by existing law, has captured the imagination of Albanians, yielding much criticism. Criticism has focused on the fact that this is possibly a unique stadium in the world which will include as an integral part of it a very tall tower structure (the obelisk of the stadium as its architect put it).
Moreover there could have been other alternatives that preserve rather than fully dismantle the existing architecture of the stadium which may we repeat is a culture monument protected by law. Law is so cumbersome for the PPP country, they have to change it every time to accommodate new ventures. Prominent journalists and activist were prohibited from participatingin a presentation event of the project, on the excuse that they did not have formal invitations the public hearing a.k.a private monologue of the Prime Minister.
The opposition has formally requested all the documentation that was prepared before this latest PPP was approved in order to understand whether all the procedures are regular. Its’ obvious from the project that the commercial nature of the venue shall be far more prominent than the sports one but maybe this fits in with the global trend. A few kilometers down south, on the beautiful banks of the Vjosa river a (second) new hydropower plan is to be built by a Turkish consortium, who after proposing this unsolicited project won 8 bonus points in the respective tender, prompting all competition to retreat from the procedure. Unsolicited concessions is one way to put it. Another way is brought forward to criticism who claim that the project for this site was existing since communist times and therefore cannot be counted as a new idea. Other critics from the environmentalist ranks highlight the fact that Vjosa river and its ecosystem, one of the few remaining natural and unaltered river systems in Europe, will be utterly damaged.
In general many of the public projects, independent of the way they are being done, seem to be focused disproportionately on esthetics, facades, show. Towers, city center rehabilitations, fountains, stadiums. In between them and much less one can find new schools, rehabilitated hospitals or road maintenance. All major road projects have been halted including Elbasan road, Arber road and the finalization of the Durres-Kukes highway. But fear no more PPP nation! PPPs are coming to salvage all this! It is only natural that there will be different opinions and there will be critics for the way the executive perceives and goes about the development in this country.
Yet criticism seems to be tangential to the way PPP nation operates and progresses.Criticism is discredited as personal or political and not professional. It is thrown out of halls and tainted with mud over its proponents. Some of the critics are miraculously convinced to change their minds upon seeing the project details! Criticism is either silenced or when allowed, utterly ridiculed on national TV and other traditional media. PPP country does not have time for this! You can always voice your discontent at the ballot box. PPP country has to go forward!
