Reform fails to make Albania’s new municipalities financially independent, auditors say

TIRANA, Nov. 6 – Almost four years after Albania started implementing a territorial and administrative reform that reorganized local government units, the new larger 61 municipalities continue remaining largely dependent on central government funding and their further decentralization and fiscal autonomy remains at risk, a report has shown. A recent report by Albania’s Supreme State Audit Institution, ALSAI, shows that with eight months to go before Albania holds the upcoming local elections, the much-rumored territorial and administrative reform that cut the number of local government units from 373 very fragmented communes and municipalities that now operate as municipal units to…