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Ajola like Veliaj/ Reacts and defends Harabel who received hundreds of millions of lek

2025-02-22 14:23:00, Aktualitet CNA

Ajola like Veliaj/ Reacts and defends Harabel who received hundreds of millions

Ajola Xoxa, like her husband arrested for corruption and money laundering, has taken the protection of NGOs through which she has received hundreds of millions of lek, including through the blessing of funds from the Municipality of Tirana.

The facts and evidence are revealed in the court decision, which clearly shows how Ajola Xoxa has benefited through Non-Profit Organizations, including Harabel.

Ajola Xoxa's full statement

About HARABEL CONTEMPORARY

Another explanation about the "Sparrow", which for some was a great predator.

Firstly, Harabel Contemporary is not a commercial company (company), but a Non-Profit Organization (NPO). This, according to Albanian law, means that Harabel has NO owners and does NOT generate profit, and if at the end of the financial year there is money left in the account of an NPO, it is NOT distributed or transferred, but remains in the organization's coffers and is used for its projects in subsequent years.

Surprisingly, the indictment against me states that I am the "owner" of Harabel. Is it written like this because the accusers are confusing what a non-profit organization legally is or because they did not want to understand that I am not the owner of Harabel, neither legally nor practically, I cannot say. Lately, I can no longer understand even things that seemed completely simple to me until yesterday.

The NGO that we named Harabel started the idea in 2017 and was founded in early 2018. So it has been operating for 7 years to date. The idea was the product of conversations between me and Driant Zeneli, a well-known contemporary artist in Albania, but especially internationally. In the establishment of the NGO, 2 other girls joined us.

Harabel was born from the desire to make a serious and helpful contribution to the contemporary art scene in Albania. None of us ever had profit goals, on the contrary, and for anyone who knows this field, it is not at all surprising that we are committed to helping, not to winning. The opposite would surprise everyone, because with art, large international galleries can win, others survive, while NGOs are not even born to win.

Harabel today counts an infinity of projects, from the smallest to the very largest (the figures are below). Harabel's activity is public, with descriptions, names, photos and videos, on the website: harabel.org.

IN SEVEN (7) YEARS OF ACTIVITY, Harabel has achieved:

- 30 visual art exhibitions: with at least 220 featured artists and over 15 curators, Albanian and foreign;

- 28 conversations with art personalities, with at least 41 guests (artists/curators/architects/historians), Albanian and foreign;

- 12 performance shows based on film, with at least 46 artists, Albanian and foreign;

- 8 installed public works + 3 short-term public works, with at least 17 Albanian artists;

- 23 collaborative art events (including the Tirana Video Art Festival, Contemporary Dance Festival, Manifesta Biennial, DokuFest, etc. etc. etc.), with more than 277 artists, Albanian and foreign;

- 9 workshops, with 24 workshop leaders and over 222 young artist participants;

- many exhibitions and activities to present Albanian artists abroad.

So in total, IN 7 YEARS OF ACTIVITY, HARABEL HAS CARRIED OUT OVER 113 ART ACTIVITIES, IN WHICH OVER 625 ARTISTS HAVE PARTICIPATED (not counting workshop participants or candidate artists who did not show up, which would exceed one thousand).

Harabel has paid hundreds of artists, curators (not me), artistic companies or support companies in the realization of artistic activities. Harabel's balance sheets have been regularly submitted to the tax authorities and can be easily found, they have also been submitted to many European and international bodies and institutions, where Harabel has applied for projects and been accepted. Harabel has also counted dozens of employees with employment contracts, who have always worked with such great passion that for many lazy people it has been very difficult to believe how we managed to do so much work. We have succeeded and have been and are a positive team (despite the trauma of passing the psychological pressure test of this hallucinatory investigation), with a passion for art and a good desire to do good for our city and country.

During these 7 years, since its founding, I have been a member and Director of the Board of Harabel (without pay). I have not been the Executive Director of Harabel (we are in the process) and my engagement as Artistic Director of Harabel has been without pay (I have only been paid for 3 specific projects, which I will list below; and I reiterate, this is normal in the art world, while I have my income from my law firm).

In total, in 7 years of activity, Harabel's financial balance has been 4 years with a minus and 3 years with a small plus. Even in the last 2 years, Harabel has a negative balance. So, simply put: Harabel supports itself, and not easily (this is also quite normal in the world of non-profit organizations of art and culture).

In 7 years of existence, the TOTAL Harabel budget for the 7 years has been FROM 653'591 euros (gross), where international, European and Albanian applications and donors are counted, among the most numerous in number and type. During these 7 years, Harabel has benefited only 3 projects in the Ministry of Culture (the total funds from the Ministry of Culture are equal to 34'804 euros gross, and this also includes the fund of about 20'000 euros given for the exhibition of a world myth like Salvador Dali... so calculate the minimum funds of the other 2 projects) and only 2 projects in the Ministry of Tourism (10'431 euros gross total for both projects together).

I emphasize that neither I nor anyone else at Harabel have any conflict of interest with these two Ministries. I also emphasize that I have not received any payment from these projects.

So, out of Harabel's total budget of 653,591 euros in SEVEN YEARS, the total funds from the Ministry of Culture plus that of Tourism are 45,235 euros (where almost half is for bringing authentic works of Salvador Dali to Tirana). Harabel has not received any other funds from Albanian public institutions.

Hundreds and hundreds of artists and employees have benefited from all of Harabel's funds for the realization of artistic projects, for hundreds of projects.

And no, Harabel has NEVER received ANY FUNDS from the Municipality of Tirana!

You read it well, and I take this statement as my own and challenge any public slanderer to produce a single piece of evidence to the contrary. Evidence, not gossip from tables and portals from the file of my accusers, which has frightening proportions of tendentiousness and legal oddities.

In 7 years of activity at Harabel, where I have given my soul, mind, time, all my passion, to help create a cultural reality of the highest level, so that it does not lack anything in confronting the European scene, I have never received a salary, I have never been paid as an artistic director, I have never been paid for the dozens and dozens of exhibitions and events that I have attended as a curator and I have never been paid by any public fund. This is my simple truth and so torturous now, when as in a bad dream I seem to be facing a "self" that others have created for me to do me the worst possible harm.

In 7 years of Harabel's existence, I have been paid a total of 20'521 euros gross (which means 17'442 euros net) in total, for the 3 projects as follows:

- 8'858 euros net, for the 2-year SPARE project, a project funded by Creative Europe (i.e. a European fund), with Harabel as a partner and not as a leader, part of a group of participating foreign organizations, where I was selected by this group of organizations to be part of the project's Artistic Leadership Team (this was the name it bore) throughout the 2 years of the project;

- 4'335 euros per night, for the artistic management of the production of a film about Sabiha Kasimat, funded by the Merz Foundation (Italy);

- 4,250 euros per night, for the visual design of the Contemporary Dance Festival, a project by Angjelin Preljocaj, D18 (Paris) and MEKI, a payment which was financed by a large private Albanian company, well known for supporting cultural projects.

So, as I said, I was paid 17,442 euros net in 7 years of work for Harabel and zero of these payments of mine came from public funds. I have declared all of this in my annual declaration to ILDKPI.

I have always tried to stay in the shadow of Harabel, I knew very well that a media category always seeks to link my activity with Erion. Meanwhile, the truth is that Erion has always stayed away and has often suspected that this socio-cultural activism of mine would make me a target. (In all these 7 years of Harabel's existence or 17 years of my work as a lawyer, Erion has come to our offices only 1 time, yes yes, only ONE time, and that time he came to bring his son.)

But I didn't want to believe that I had to stay away from my passion for art and culture just because my husband is a politician.

Many may find it surprising why a lawyer, with some education in law, deals with art. This is because my entire family is made up of artists, and when I say the entire family, I mean ALL. I grew up in this habitat and art is like water to a fish for me. I also did a master's degree at the University of Arts directed by Prof. Vladimir Myrtezaj in 2019-2021, which I followed with surgical precision.

Of all the work I have done in my life, and there are many, the artistic work with Harabel is the one I have loved and cherish the most. It hurts my soul when Harabel's work is tarnished for low political and media reasons, in my soul. Whatever anyone says and tries to diminish our work, this is the truth.

It is also a fact that we have done a very great and significant job for the Albanian cultural scene. Those who have followed us know it. Others will learn when my innocence receives the seal of justice.





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