Municipalities incapable of investing, realized only 43% of the plan in 2024

2025-03-21 07:50:00, Aktualitet CNA

Central and local government units are suffering from a chronic inability to implement the public investment program as planned.

Official data from the Ministry of Finance shows that local government units burned through more than half of the public investment program last year.

The final data on the 2024 budget shows that the local government implemented only 43 percent of the investment program. Of the planned 46.3 billion lek, only 19.9 billion lek were invested, or less than half of the program.

The inability of municipalities to allocate investments comes at a time when they are faced with great needs to invest, especially in local road infrastructure.

More detailed data shows that the Municipality of Tirana had the largest investment fund with around 18 billion lek in 2024, but managed to invest only 6.1 billion lek or 34 percent of the program.

The Municipality of Durrës, which is the main host of tourists in the country and has great needs in local infrastructure, has only implemented 50 percent of the investment program for 2024. Out of about 4 billion lek programmed, it has only implemented 2 billion of them.

Among the municipalities with a prefecture center, it is seen that Vlora had the weakest implementation with only 17% of the program. In 2024, only 251 million lek were invested out of the 1.4 billion lek that was the annual program.

The Municipality of Vlora has developed marine tourism with the most beautiful coastline in the country, while the needs for investment, especially in waste management and water supply, are still great.

The municipality of Kamza, although not a district center, had a large investment program compared to the others. This municipality, in relation to the available fund of 2.6 billion lek, had the best implementation of 75%.

The Municipality of Lezha also had an 80 percent realization of the plan, investing in 2024 around 743 million lek out of the programmed 922 million.

The Municipality of Shkodra, the capital of the North with great infrastructure needs, had a poor implementation of the investment plan with only 33%. Of the 689 million lek that was the program, only 225 million lek were implemented.

The poorest municipality in the country, that of Kukës, had a high implementation of the plan with around 89%, but had the lowest investment fund available with only 149 million lek, of which 131 million lek were implemented.

With the territorial reform, municipalities offer a series of services ranging from education, fire departments, local roads and a series of other social services. But in reality, municipalities suffer from a lack of capable human resources, and as a result, they have not been able to draft convincing projects to raise funds.

At a time when the country's population is rapidly aging and thousands of elderly people live alone and in economic and physical poverty, while most municipalities do not provide care for the elderly. Most municipalities, even those representing regional centers, do not have homes for the elderly.

Monitoring reports have shown that rural areas of the country suffer from a complete lack of waste treatment services and other local services./ Monitor Magazine