Prime Minister Edi Rama, together with the Minister of State for Reconstruction Arben Ahmetaj and the acting mayor Emirjona Sako, announced that work has begun on distributing grants to families that have suffered minor damage from the November 26 earthquake.
Rama said that an amount of 80 million dollars will be distributed to all municipalities affected by the earthquake.
The head of government also announced that work has begun on individual houses and the doors for the first apartments will open in early autumn. As for collective units, he said that patience is needed as they require more time.
"We have started intensively working on the distribution of grants. Every day is a lot for people waiting to enter their homes. We have done our best to do it as well and as quickly as possible. There are 25 million dollars that will be distributed to all families who need to complete repairs in those apartments where the damage is repairable. We have approved the Hospital plan. There are a series of other buildings that will be built individually in the points where they were destroyed so that the damaged families can return to the neighborhood where the disaster occurred. We are in the phase where the competitions will begin.
It is moving intensively everywhere. It is an amount of 80 million dollars that will go as payment to the citizens in Tirana, Vora, Kavaja, Shijak, Durres, Kamza, Kruja, Fushë-Kruja, Kurbin, Mirditë and Lezha.
Concrete work has begun on the individual houses. We will be on the ground very soon and the doors of the new apartments will open in early autumn.
For collective housing, more patience is needed. For our part, we are not leaving anything to chance.
The mayor knows that it is a super complicated process. She is laughing because she is constantly whispering in my ear, sometimes in a moderate voice and sometimes with a slightly raised volume to move the process forward. I am grateful to her for doing a fantastic job, it is like peeling rice because there are many problems, complexes, not ownership, not crowns in a family, registration, legalized or not, but we will not stop. It is a process that will help us close this terrible wound that opened on November 26 of last year, but it will also bring a significant impact on our economy that needs an injection, new opportunities for employment and investment.
The main thing is the release of funding, they will talk about the concrete facts very soon, because we are the homeland of Saint Thomas, and if we don't touch it, we don't believe it, so we will ensure that you touch the works yourself."
