Prime Minister Rama emphasized the importance of understanding the upsides of the reform in Public Procurement, especially amid the numerous accusations of corruption.

“However, this is the situation we find ourselves in, the world we live in. At this point, you’re dealing with the most corrupt person on earth. I don’t know what to say—you either go crazy, or you do your job, or you just have to close your ears, look ahead, and say, ‘I have left it to God because I don’t know what else to say,'” said Rama.

“This is a piece of information that helps those who are bombarded every day with misleading information, saying, ‘There is only a bunch of people, getting everything, and the money is divided among these five,'” said Rama.

Expert Kashta stated that a long-term assessment has been conducted and the data is quite promising.

“We conducted a comparison between the periods 2009-2013 and 2014-2024, pointing to an increase of 19,016 new economic operators in the latter period, compared to those duplicated from the previous participation in public procurement. On average, the number of economic operators winning public procurement procedures is an indicator we measure every year. The latest data from 2023 shows an average of 3.37 economic operators participating in a procurement procedure.”

15 economic operators can participate in one procedure, while in another, only four. We measure the total number of procedures in a year, which can reach up to five thousand, indicating how many operators are involved in each procedure. This is a measure of competition within the procurement system. In Albania, we’ve increased the competition from 2.2 in 2022 to 3.37 in 2023, whereas in the EU, this remains one of the challenges in public procurement.

The EU is working out mechanisms to boost participation in public procurement, currently averaging 2.5 participants per procedure, whereas we recorded a higher average of 3.37 last year. Kashta noted that this phenomenon isn’t exclusive to the Albanian system, as competition is influenced by the market forces.

Prime Minister Rama stated that the savings accumulated over the years from the public procurement process amount to up to 1 billion euros.

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