“Just like in Italy and France, when municipalities fail to pay liabilities and the financial situation becomes a hole that can no longer be filled, pretending not to see it,” Rama said at a conference on decentralization and local government’s financial performance.

Rama expressed the belief that the municipalities have potential for profitable financial economic activity and failure to capitalize on this potential is unjustifiable.

“We must definitely open this chapter. Municipalities need to restructure their profitable economic activity. It is entirely viable. It is not rocket science, it is only a matter of vision, will and expertise. For this reason, here in this meeting there are representatives of the World Bank, ” said Rama.

Also, the Prime Minister said that “just as we did with the cleanup, we will do with the budget discipline.”
“Municipal councils and prefects will no longer approve budgets unless they are in compliance with financial parameters that guarantee the financial stability of municipalities. It is absolutely true that this snapshot is not of your own making, because it is a situation carried over from previous years, but many of the municipalities are in the green area today thanks to the mayors who got things right with leadership and responsibility regardless of the critical situation they inherited. There are improvements that have occurred in this period,” he said.

Rama put the emphasis on discipline.

“You run up debts and leave them to the government. You accumulate the problems and wait for the government to solve them. You restrict all projects to budget-funded projects and do not get out of this vicious circle of problem-solving. Today your cities are cleaner than they were before the budget was conditioned on fulfillment of some cleanup criteria. It proved that things are done,” he said.

Nonetheless, Rama said, currently 45 municipalities do not have financial problems.

“Among best-performing municipalities I saw large, medium and small municipalities. I saw Konispol, which is a small municipality that does not have the same opportunities as a significant part of the municipalities, and Konispol has no financial problems. What is the difference between Konispol and Tropoja, which has financial problems? It is a matter of administration and responsibility. I understand that many problems have been carried over from the past, but even the government was in the same situation upon taking office. “We inherited a huge debt, but we could not say that they are the debts of others and we will continue to spend, because it is the same state, the same coffers, regardless of who are the people that assume responsibilities and sign,” he said.
/r.e/sm/