Tirana Times
TIRANA, Jan. 12 – From 4.8 million olive trees Albania had before, now it has 10 million. It aims at reaching 20 million.
Nuts are a more ambitious project.
The government is urging all farmers, schools and everyone to turn their eyes to the olives and nuts because the last scientific data show that keep health to high standards.
That is the cabinet meeting main topic Wednesday, only minutes after Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Ilir Meta came out to publicly say that he had sent a letter to Parliament Speaker Jozefina Topalli willingly lifting his immunity and letting prosecutors start the investigation on alleged corruptive actions.
Though not a directly professional person in that field, or justice, the writer believes that the parliament should still convene and vote to lift his immunity before the prosecutor’s office starts the investigation, or the prosecutor’s office should formally ask the parliament to lift that immunity. Otherwise that remains a political tool well used.
A day earlier a tape broadcast at a private television station Top Channel showed how Meta was ordering the former minister of economy, Dritan Prifti, to employ party supporters, change or abuse with public tenders on concession to a hydropower station and the fact they could get 700,000 Euros or seven percent from the company applying for that tender.
So what is the country’s main goal: the national project on olive and nuts trees, or fight against corruption following the recent claims on a top official?
The cabinet made it clear – olive and nuts plantations are the prospects.
Sure, they are but until reaching that level or moment in the country’s history when everyone would say “bravo” to the 2011 government’s idea on that, the people and the government, the world for sure, have to listen how to cope with corruption in this country which is hampering its development and the democracy.
Do Albanians listen to these voices? Do they listen to western diplomats from Washington to Brussels saying that the rule of law and the fight against corruption remain main priorities along the country’s efforts of integration into the European Union.
Two years ago the prime minister fired a minister only ten minutes after a similar broadcast tape, that time for moral abuse. The minister later came out from a court to be innocent.
But not this time. Meta is an important coalition partner and without him the cabinet could not be created and the country could go to fresh elections.
One may say that it depends whether Albania really wants to become a EU member. The situation is far away, the corruption level even further and the will from the politicians is very likely at the horizon on that issue.
As an EU member the government and the politicians need to behave differently, the judiciary should try to work independently and the people know more, are aware of their rights and obligations more.
Another could say that Albanians are not good in remembering events. A popular saying says nothing could last longer than three days, including corruption cases.
Don’t Albanians remember the news they heard briefly last week from the United Kingdom, likely the oldest democracy in the world?
A lawmaker, now in opposition, acknowledged that he had abused with the public money so that he could be sentenced less. But he was sentenced. The lawmaker was imprisoned for 18 months because he had abused with 18,350 pounds with fake bills, which he has also to pay back to the government and add the trial cost too.
Albanians listen to 700,000 Euros of abusive money. They have heard of millions of Euros of abuse money, or 20 percent bribe. They also see that not only the businessmen, the government but also former government officials are at first sight so rich, with luxurious cars and many houses, with land and businesses. They now speak in millions of dollars at a time when the average salary in the country is officially a couple of hundred of Euros.
Albania is a small country with rich natural resources. But not all the people, to say the least, enjoy their benefits.
It will pass a long time until the people really understand their rights, until the government and the politicians really fight corruption.
Until then Albanians will listen to comedy shows like hearing of hundreds of thousand or millions of abused public money and the funny reaction from the government and all politicians in their ‘staunch’ fight against corruption.
Albanians do like olive trees and nuts and, as the premier has said, they are using more olive oil now. But they also do want a better life that could make them really like living in a prospective Switzerland if they had also the bunch of abused public money they pay themselves.
