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"Shake the chain and waste it"/ Rama criticizes Dredhe: The water situation in Vlora is unacceptable, billions of euros in debt

2025-09-03 11:20:00, Politikë CNA

"Shake the chain and waste it"/ Rama criticizes Dredhe: The water

Prime Minister Edi Rama, present at the roundtable presentation of the creation of the Water Operator, harshly criticized the local government and regional companies in this sector for mismanagement of funds and sinking into debt.

Rama has harshly criticized the mayor of Vlora, Ermal Dredha, reminding him of the lack of water supply during the summer season in this municipality, considering it an unacceptable situation.

The Prime Minister accused local administrations of wasting funds and "twisting the chain." Rama said that according to the report, water entities had a debt of 13.6 billion euros to OSHEE.

"The level of incompetence in local government is frightening. Vlora started the tourist season with an unacceptable water supply situation.

We didn't make any investments, but we just sent a team from Tirana and with special attention from the ministry here to administer it with what was available, it brought about an improvement and removed the anxiety and alarm that we don't have water. How can this happen?

The report prepared by that team on the administration of the Vlora Water Supply System shows frightening irresponsibility.

"The debts accumulated by these enterprises were 13.6 billion euros. Spend, squander and shake the master and burden OSHEE with debts," said the prime minister, criticizing local administrations for mismanagement of water.

Rama made a report on the implementation of the water supply reform, where he said that regional companies have been merged from 15 to 9 to reduce debt. For the second phase, he warned of measures against abusers, which in this case, he said, unlike energy, are the violators, not the citizens.

"We established 58 teams, 15 regional companies with the aim of improving the situation. Today we have significant results that show that the answer is unification and not fragmentation. People do not drink decentralization from the tap, but water. Today we have 9 regional companies out of 15 that do not create obligations towards OSHEE.

Water in the sky is something else, in the taps it is a commodity that is collected, sold and bought, it is a vital commodity.

That's why we're starting this second phase of the reform. 100,000 new users have been connected to the network since the first phase, and illegal connections have been cut off.

Just as we did with energy, we will intervene with a plan of measures. We are in conditions where abusers are motivated by profit, car washes, water that is spilled at national points, illegal underground connections that will be the target of measures.

This is the time to start working on removing deposits that have become a burden on buildings and can become a source of disasters. Removing deposits improves supply. We are committed and have many red dots to turn into green for investments to enter the new world of technology.

"EU entry requires significant comparability in water supply by 2030," Rama said.