Author: Klivia Kafexhiu
If you do a simple search on the net, you can easily find information about new or reconstructed schools with European Union funds in Albania. Finding information about schools being built with public funds on the other hand (including public information on financing and reconstruction procedures) is a challenge in itself. Challenge, which also extends to the reasoning of how schools built with Tirana Municipality funds cost almost twice as much as those built with EU funds.
The reconstruction of the capital's educational institutions after the earthquake of November 26, 2019, one of the biggest natural disasters in the territory of the Republic of Albania in recent decades, was among the most discussed topics in the months that followed. This earthquake, beyond major damage to public infrastructure and private property, also had a heavy impact on the schools of the cities affected by it, one of which was Tirana. In numerous posts on the official pages of the Municipality of Tirana and on those of the mayor, Erion Veliaj, it was promised that many schools in the capital, affected by this earthquake, would start reconstruction from the ground up and another number of schools would be restored their previous ones thanks to partial reconstructions.
At the same time, even Prime Minister Rama, on many occasions over the years 2019 and 2020, has promised that in the new school seasons, such as those of 2020-2021 and 2021-2022, the children of the destroyed schools would start learning in new schools, with much better conditions than those they had before the earthquake.
in threads for in his social media, the prime minister promises that "143 new schools with European standards (will be), all ready by 2021, instead of so-so buildings, hit by the disaster at the end of 2019, are a meaningful response on behalf of the Albania we love." , taking emphasized that by 2020 all schools will be ready to receive their students. These promises have come, both at a time when the school infrastructure, even before the earthquake, has been amortized, as well as in a pre-election period with numerous promises and very high expectations.
From a research of Albanian Center for Quality Journalism it turns out that, despite approaching the second year after the infamous earthquake, about 38 educational institutions are expected not to be ready to receive students in their auditoriums in the new school year, 2021-2022. From the information received from the Municipality of Tirana, the latter admits that 38 educational facilities are still in the process of reconstruction in Tirana, 30 of which are in the process of reconstruction and 8 are being reconstructed.
Among these 38 schools is the well-known "Sami Frashëri" high school. This school started the reconstruction process in December 2019 and it was expected that its construction would be completed in January 2020, but the school that collapsed and is being built from the ground up, even in June of this year, continues to be in the first steps of reconstruction.
"Sami Frashëri" Gymnasium was founded in the school year 1962-1963 and follows a long history of success at the national level. After the initial promises to rebuild and reopen the school within a short period of time, but which failed to be realized, on October 29, 2020, the opening of the foundations for the construction of the new school, which is expected to be 2 times larger than the previous building.
The Mayor of Tirana said at the end of June 2020, that work on the reconstruction of the "Sami Frashëri" gymnasium will start within the summer. it stated that this will be the biggest and most beautiful school in Tirana, according to European standards. Besides these statements about the expectations for this gymnasium, the mayor stated also in November 2020 that this school was being built with European Union funds. After the mayor's statements, former members of parliament e accused that for false declaration, as there is no project and official notification about the use of EU funds for educational projects. On the other hand, the information obtained from the Municipality of Tirana shows that 27 schools, planned to be rebuilt and reconstructed in the capital, will be built with the funds of the state budget and the remaining part will be financed from different donors.
Reconstruction with funds from the European Union against those of the Municipality of Tirana
From the request for information addressed to the Ministry of Reconstruction, the latter confirms that the "Sami Frashëri" gymnasium is not included in the list of schools, which will be reconstructed with the funds made available by the European Union. From the list made available by this ministry, the schools, which are expected to be built with funds from the EU and other donors, are:
9-year school "Jezmi Delli"
9-year school "Musine Kokalari"
9-year school "November 26"
9-year school "Asim Vokshi"
9-year school "Emin Duraku"
9-year school "Myslym Keta" and Kindergarten No. 41
The Ministry clarifies that the entire phase of design, implementation and supervision of these investments will be followed by the donors themselves with their implementing units.
The European Union has two reconstruction projects, which are EU4Schools and EU4Culture. From the search on the official website of EU4Schools it turns out that 6 schools are being rebuilt with EU funds in Tirana and the dates of the consultation, the beginning of the repair and the end of the reconstruction process are also given in detail. The EU, in the framework of the reconstruction, donated 400 million euros, of which 115 million in direct grants, divided into these two projects, with the project EU4Schools, who made 75 million euros available for reconstruction.
At the beginning of the process of restoration and reconstruction of these schools, according to the Bulletin of the Public Procurement Agency, the limit fund, made available by the European Union, coincided with the value of 15 million euros, dedicated to the repair and reconstruction of 22 schools, with a average of 681.000.00 euros per school. At the same time, the Albanian Development Fund would contribute 34 million euros to 45 other schools, with about 760.000.00 euros per school.
while with the 41,147,121 euro fund of the Municipality of Tirana, it is planned to intervene in 22 schools, i.e. 45 schools less and with a small difference of funds of 8,075,976 ALL.
On the page Open Procurement Albania tenders announced by the Albanian Development Fund are available. In the region of Tirana, the funds of this organization are focused on the Municipality of Vora, Kamza, Kavaja, Shijaku and Rrogozhina, and there is no data on educational facilities in the Municipality of Tirana.
At the same time, an official source of the Directorate of Urbanism gives us data about the schools that are being rebuilt by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). There it can be seen that 6 of the educational institutions of Tirana are being financed by UNDP. Program EU4Schools implemented by UNDP, which has donated 765.000.00 euros from its funds. The "Sami Frashëri" gymnasium is not included in this list either, but this school is included in the list of contracts concluded by the Municipality of Tirana on 23.10.2020 with a value of 568,492,069 ALL without VAT, about 6 million euros. This is a value for the reconstruction of a single school, equivalent to the fund for the reconstruction and reconstruction of about 10 educational institutions, financed by the European Union.
Another fact, which is observed from the examination of the tender of opened by the Municipality of Tiranas and contracts related to various economic operators, is the decision to build 10 new residential buildings for students, with a construction cost of about 3 million euros per building, with the exception of the "Sami Frashëri" gymnasium, which was dedicated to taxpayers' pockets 6 million euros, all other schools and kindergartens, provided for in this call, do not exceed the value of 2 million euros for construction.
Moreover, in this limited tendering procedure, what really attracts attention is the fact that in an open procedure for 14 different objects; where the most favorable economic offer was the basic condition for the selection of winners, with full 60% of the evaluation points; where 13 companies or associations have submitted their full offer to the economic operator for each building, bringing the total number of offers in this tender to 182 offers; where in many of the winning bids, the winning values were almost the same for the same constructions from different operators; none of the economic operators who participated in this tender missed the opportunity to win at least one contract from the Municipality of Tirana. Every company that participated in this tender won at least one tender contract.
International projects, such as Eu4Schools, implemented by the EU and UNDP, are several times more transparent than the Albanian state institutions about the reconstruction process. Meanwhile, regarding the reconstruction process, and simply the schools in the capital, it is almost impossible to find any information on the website of the Municipality of Tirana, apart from news and promotional videos of the institution itself. In any case, there is a need to forward official requests for information, which are often delayed in their response and often absent in response altogether. Unlike the transparency of the Albanian state institutions, on the above-mentioned EU project pages, any information can be easily found with a simple search on their official pages.
Temporary education tax and its truncated use
An important element, which raises questions about the transparency of the reconstruction of schools in the Municipality of Tirana, is the temporary education tax. According to the annual data, in the collection of this tax and some simple accounts on the income of the Municipality of Tirana, questions are raised about the transparency of the use of funds for reconstruction.
Through a request for information to the General Directorate of Local Taxes and Fees, it turns out that the education tax for the category of family for 2016 was collected in the amount of ALL 1,257,016,607, while for biznes, in the amount of ALL 2,000,122,053.
The fund collected by the Municipality of Tirana from the temporary tax of the educational infrastructure is intended to be used for investments in the educational infrastructure and in the operation of the institutions that manage the programs of basic education, preschool, as well as secondary and general education.
Through another request for information from the Municipality of Tirana, we were provided with a table, which reflects the investments made by the Municipality of Tirana in the educational infrastructure and the income collected from the temporary tax of the educational infrastructure for the years 2016-2020. It is noted that the expenditure on basic education has increased significantly in 2019, while the income collected from the tax has decreased. The proportional year of expenditure and tax revenue collection is 2017.
However, despite the information obtained from the Municipality of Tirana, in no case has information been provided as to how much funds from this specific tax are going towards projects to improve the educational infrastructure in the city, given that many of the schools that are being built in Tirana have been subjected to the public-private partnership procedure, in which the Municipality of Tirana has become a guarantor for the loans received by private operators for the construction of these facilities.
Moreover, although the revenues collected by the Municipality of Tirana through a tax defined by it as "temporary", but which is now, after more than 5 years in force, turning into a tax of common, gives the latter the opportunity to invest strongly in a vital sector for the future of the city, it remains unclear why the program for the reconstruction of school institutions in Tirana costs twice as much, when it is financed, supervised, implemented and completed by the Municipality of Tirana , when faced with the program to rebuild schools damaged by the November 26 earthquake, financed and supervised by international partners and the Development Fund. It is enough to emphasize here the fact that, of all the funds opened by the Municipality of Tirana, about 40 million euros, 6 million are going towards the reconstruction of the "Sami Frashëri" gymnasium, about 12 million euros are going towards the reconstruction of 8 other schools and the remaining part of 22 million euros is going towards the reconstruction of student residences (with the same fixed cost of about 3 million euros per building), and social centers.
According to the Albanian Law on the right to information with official documents, information about the reconstruction should be public and easily accessible, included in transparency program or ideally in a specific corner of the website of the Municipality of Tirana, seeing the importance given to the reconstruction program by all actors. The opposite resulted from this research, where it is many times easier to achieve transparency and receive answers from international institutions operating in the territory of Albania, than from local institutions. It is many times easier to get information from institutions like the European Union, even through a simple phone call, than from the Municipality of Tirana, where, despite the existence of the Press and Public Relations Office, the only answer you can get is : "Send a request for information"; a request for information, for which in the best case you manage to get a partial answer outside the legal deadlines and in the worst case you are forced to start appeal procedures with the Commissioner for the Right to Information.
The lack of transparency raises questions, not only to compare commitments with achievements, but also for the costs of (re)building schools by local authorities.
The numerous delays can be attributed to the "pandemic period", but there is no excuse for the lack of basic information about the reconstruction of schools after the earthquake of 2019. The lack of transparency becomes more apparent in the face of the complete and detailed information found in projects financed by the EU and UNDP.
*Any information obtained, regarding the tenders announced by the Municipality of Tirana for the reconstruction program, was obtained from the OpenProcurement portal, because, as on the website of the Public Procurement Agency, but also on the website of the Municipality of Tirana, it was impossible to find the requested information.
