Prime Minister Edi Rama reacted on Tuesday regarding an investment being implemented in the coastal area of Zvernec in Vlora.
He described the news that the state is offering public property as “false”. During his speech at the presentation of “Albanian Digital Solution” on Friday, the head of government said that the property where the investment is being made in Zvernec is private.
“It comes naturally to me to speak about the great noise that has been raised over a fake news story claiming that the state is offering land in Zvernec. The state is not offering land because the state has nothing there. It has been a private property for a long time. The investors involved in that process are extremely serious and have taken that property from the private sector,” said Rama.
Rama also clarified that the Albanian state is part of the project only in the area of ??the island of Sazan. “The state does have assets on the other side of the project, which is the island of Sazan, where negotiations have not yet ended, as the Albanian Investment Corporation is part of the project. The Albanian state will be there, and the land of the island will be part of the Albanian state,” said Rama.
Recently, citizens and environmental activists have been actively protesting against a massive luxury resort and infrastructure project in the Zvernec and Akerni regions near Vlora. Demonstrators have demanded a halt to construction and full transparency regarding the development. They claim that the area is blocked without any information or public opinion. According to activists, the project will be implemented in a protest area, a strip of sand between the lagoon and the sea.
However, the state institutions have refused to provide any information about the project, its environmental impact, and the building permit.
Furthermore, the head of government talked about the creation of the Albanian Digital Solution company as another initiative aimed at modernizing services and strengthening technological innovation in the country.
In his speech, Rama said that this is a marked day on the path of the digital revolution and the radical transformation of the country’s governance through technology, as today the creation of a new company is made public, which arises as a necessity in this new phase of the development of electronic governance.
The Prime Minister stated that the need for financing has been increasing, since the built systems require financing, both to be created and to be maintained. “At the same time, the need arose to share the leadership of e-government, the definition of standards, the orientation of the digital architecture, the coordination of the forces involved, and the control of quality and compliance with the operational level”.
This division, the head of government continued, “is not made between the public sector and the private sector, but first and foremost within the public sector itself, thus creating a new company, ‘Albanian Digital Solutions’”.
Rama said that with the involvement of another state partner and with the expertise coming from the private sector, it is being made possible for oil marketing, excise goods tracking, and digital identity to become part of a state holding.