Edi Rama

A BIRN Freedom of Information Request has revealed that Prime Minister Edi Rama on 29 September last year appointed his own former spokesperson, Endri Fuga, as head of the newly established Media and Information Agency, MIA. The appointment was not published and was disclosed only recently following the FOI request.

Unfortunately, for the past 30 years, both international and Albanian leaders have often tipped the scales of justice to serve their respective political agendas.

Montenegrin PM Zdravko Krivokapic (right), Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (centre) and Albanian PM Edi Rama (left) at a meeting in Belgrade. Photo: Government of Montenegro

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) during a welcoming ceremony with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama (L) at Tirana airport, January 17 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/MALTON DIBRA

The complex was financed and built by Turkey for Albanians who lost their houses in the magnitude 6.3 earthquake in late 2019, which killed 51 people and displaced nearly 17,000 people.

Few people in the US or abroad took notice of President Joe Biden's memorandum to combat corruption globally -until the Administration began to declare former world leaders personae non grata.

In Albania, the US had repeatedly criticized Prime Minister Edi Rama's Socialist government of corruption, calling it "pervasive in all branches of government," especially in the judiciary.

Leaders of Albania's two main Socialist and Democratic parties, Prime Minister Edi Rama and Lulzim Basha, marked National Youth Day on December 8 with opposing messages about the state of the country today.

The CEC, which is tasked with auditing the reports, is still crunching the numbers from the last election, which returned the Socialist Party of Prime Minister Edi Rama for an unprecedented third term in government.

But data from the financial reports seen by BIRN, compared with the going rate for political advertising on television, gives cause for suspicion.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama months is getting tough with illegal builds. Earlier this year he announced an operation codenamed "Our Coastline", aiming to remove all such illegal constructions damaging the coastline, and punish those responsible.

The former leader of Albania's main opposition Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, on Tuesday told supporters in the central town of Kavaja that he intends a return to the helm of the party he left in 2013, in a direct challenge to the current leader, Lulzim Basha.

Albania PM Edi Rama (right) and the EU Ambassador in Tirana Luigi Soreca in Tirana, October 20, 2020. Photo: LSA