By Alba Cela
On Nov. 16, citizens will have to take measures to secure their water supply because CEZ will cut off electricity to all water supply public companies that owe money to CEZ, the media has announced, citing CEZ officials.
This is not a joke. The alarmingly irresponsible electricity distribution company, CEZ, on the eve of losing its license and leaving Albania is dealing a last hard blow to the citizens, betrayed by their state, in a unsuccessful and rotten privatization deal. The revoking of CEZ license is a matter of days, and the 300,000-euro-per-month salaried CEOs have found a way to strike back Granted CEZ has not found the right backing from the government to collect unpaid bills. Granted many Albanian citizens – public companies included – conserve the mentality of thieves when it comes to paying their bills, something that often makes them shoot at their own foot but even more often makes the other regular payers carry a heavy burden. Granted all financial debt trade schemes have not been negotiated to a successful end. But nothing, nothing excuses this behavior on the part of CEZ managers, this threat which punishes only the regular citizens: families, elderly sick people, mothers with infants, hospitals and bakeries.
As this paper goes to print Albanian families will be stocking water in their bathrooms and balconies and praying for the government to intervene and prevent this apocalypse. However, even in the best case scenario when this remains just a warning, even this threat is such a frightening reminder of the potential of irresponsibility becoming menacing in the public sphere. If this threat to Albanian citizens security and welfare delivered by a private company which has had profits generated by these taxpayers money materializes then the government exclusively is to be held responsible for the most utter failing to protect its citizens from the outcomes in which it has its own destructive input. For now, let’s just hope it doesn’t.
