"Senior officials should also be investigated"/ Afrim Krasniqi: Rama selects architectural projects himself, makes the law

2026-06-29 15:26:00, Aktualitet CNA

"Senior officials should also be investigated"/ Afrim Krasniqi: Rama

Political scientist Afrim Krasniqi raised questions today regarding architectural projects being developed in Albania.

Through a post on social media, Krasniqi states that Prime Minister Edi Rama himself selects the architects, studios, projects, the jury, the support funds, and the clients who must pay for the project and the architects.

Krasniqi also brings up the case of a project for one of the largest towers in the country, which, according to him, deserves a full investigation.

The political scientist lists five questions that deserve an investigative answer in the Albanian context.

Finally, Krasniqi emphasizes that anti-corruption acts and the standards of the rule of law are not measured by investigations into citizens who have made illegal electricity connections due to inability to pay monthly bills, but by the investigation of senior officials.

Full post:

To legally acquire and carry out an architectural project in Albania, a foreign investor or architectural studio must register with the National Council of Architects, have its professional license equivalized at the Ministry of Infrastructure (or the Professional Order), and acquire the right to the project through public tenders or private contracts. This is the law. But in Albania we have a prime minister and then we have the law. He himself selects the architects, the studios, the projects, the jury, the support funds, and the clients who have to pay for the project and the architects. This is the suspicion and this is the accusation repeatedly repeated in informal conversations with private companies and senior officials, but now also documented by the prime minister himself in the publication with his foreword that he arrogantly presents in meetings and international media, “The Albanian Files”.

Here is one of the notes - it is about the project with the tallest towers in Albania.

“Benedetta Tagliabue wrote to me asking if I would be willing to give my contact number to the Prime Minister of Albania. I said, of course. Five minutes later, the Prime Minister contacted me, asking if I could come to Tirana to discuss the possibility of a project. Chile is very far from anywhere, so I told her that the best thing would be to make a stop in Albania during my next trip to Europe. That trip would take place in two weeks, due to a visit to the EDP building site in Lisbon. So, in the last days of May, I managed to spend about twenty-four hours in Albania. Since then, I have been back four more times.”

Without prejudging the architect, his professionalism and sincerity, which is worth appreciating, in the Albanian context the questions that deserve answers from SPAK:

1. Are we dealing with a concrete case of abuse of office or at least, with indications for an investigation into abuse of office?

2. Can it be considered normal for the CM to personally contact an uninterested private company to bring it to Tirana, provide it with one or more projects, connect it with the financing firm (client) and then approve all subsequent project acts as the executive head of the jury/Albanian side?

3. Can the head of SPAK call a firm to come to SPAK and win tenders? If not, can SPAK allow such a thing to happen to the highest executive and political office in the country, the office of the Prime Minister?

4. Article 26 of VKM 830/2013 prohibits members of the government, including the Prime Minister, “from holding meetings with representatives of business or interest groups without the presence of two senior officials/officials of the relevant ministry and without keeping minutes of the meetings, recording the identity of the persons involved in these meetings, and recording the issues discussed in a special register kept by the Secretary General of the relevant ministry”. In this specific case, the CM should have his cabinet staff and the Secretary General present and document the meeting in the minutes. Has this happened in this and other similar cases?

5. If the construction/implementation firm turns out to be subject to SPAK and GJKKO measures against organized crime, will the investigations be deepened to investigate the connections between the firm (client), the architect's studio selected by the head of government, and the formal and informal relationships/agreements between them?

That's it for now.

Anti-corruption acts and the standards of the rule of law are not measured by investigations into citizens who have made illegal electricity connections due to inability to pay monthly bills, but are measured by the investigation of high-ranking officials who control/(mis)use the post, the state, institutions, decision-making, the budget, public property and the mandate for corrupt, clientelistic, abusive and undermining connections to functional democracy and public transparency . /CNA