This morning, dozens of police forces surrounded all entrances leading to the square where the National Theater used to be. Prime Minister Edi Rama, head of Tirana Municipality Erion Veliaj, along with several actors and other government representatives inaugurated the construction of the new Theater in a closed ceremony.
Media and citizens were not allowed to attend or watch the ceremony from afar. The event was broadcast only by ERTV (the Prime Minister's Facebook channel), with a lack of transparency for the public.
Outside the police cordon, dozens of citizens were protesting against the lack of transparency for the National Theater project.
"We are all gathered here and they don't allow us to enter to demonstrate and it has happened that they entered the territory of the Theater with lists, those who want them, who come as they please, while we who are new here, have since nine o'clock, we are waiting here, we haven't entered yet", said Elida Dobrolishti.
Another protester says that in addition to the fact that public property "is being robbed, it is also being built without a permit".
"There is no construction permit and we have seen that for a roof that is fixed, for a window that is changed, people have been criminally prosecuted and gone to prison. Meanwhile, here the mayor, with the permission of Edi Rama, builds without permission"', said Erges Eskiu.
"The National Theater as a symbol of media censorship"
For media experts, today's event is a violation of information and negatively affects the transmission of information to citizens.
"The concentration of information and the directed broadcast of such activities has become a common practice of the government, which certainly negatively affects the free and quality reporting of journalists.", said the head of MediaLook, Elvin Luku. He adds that, on the part of the government, it seems that the citizen's reaction to the issue has been anticipated.
"Setting up a cordon to keep away the group of protesters who would interfere with the broadcast of the inauguration ceremony on ERTV", adds Luku.
Elvin Luku, UT lecturer and director of MediaLook
The head of the Albanian Media Council, Koloreto Cukali, described today's event as propaganda.
"The use of ERTV as the only signal that provides information on the Prime Minister's activities, while cameras and journalists are not allowed, has been and is part of an information model that has only one name: Propaganda", Cukali told Citizens Channel, adding that in the case of the National Theater, the fear of free information increases.
Koloreto Cukali – Albanian Media Council
Regarding the violation of media freedom, he says that what happened today "it is simply a re-verification in reality that despite the recent attempts to give this Prime Minister a more Western make-up, nothing has changed, neither in the freedom of the media, nor in the mentality of the government where the media and the truth are the enemy".
Blerjana Bino, the representative of the Safe Journalist network in Albania, calls today's event a confirmed and problematic phenomenon.
"The concentration of public information and the difficulty of access of independent, investigative media or civil society organizations to public information is already a phenomenon confirmed by many independent reports on democracy in Albania. Today's case is a typical example of this phenomenon", Bino told Citizens Channel.
Blerjana Bino, representative of the Safe Journalists Network
"Tender of the National Theater"
870 days later demolition of the National Theatre, Tirana Municipality announced the tender for the construction of the new building. This was the first phase, which has a limit fund value of 1 billion and 854 million ALL without VAT.
The project for the construction of the National Theater Building, according to the data analyzed by Open Data Albania is the second public investment with the highest weight in the state budget for 2022.
According to the predictions in the paper, the National Theater project will be realized by the Municipality of Tirana for the period 2022-2024, even though officially the start of the works was announced in the last days of 2022.
The total value of the project is 4.8 billion Lek. The year 2023 will also have the highest budget weight for this investment, of 1.5 billion Lek.
The main hall of the National Theater according to the project
The study and design for the construction of the National Theater was done by two studios, A&E Engineering and Studio Konsulente F&M Ingineria.
In 2020 the municipality of Tirana opened a tender worth 60 million ALL, which in the Open Procurement database results in irregularities, as all competing operators except the winners have been disqualified. Among other things, the winner gave a value very close to the limit fund offered, while the merger of two disqualified companies gave a lower offer. The process has also been accompanied by complaints.
"Promise after promise"
More than two years after the demolition of the National Theater, the promises regarding the construction of the new building have changed time and time again.
In the afternoon of May 17, 2020, after the building of the National Theater collapsed, head of Tirana Municipality, Erion Veliaj contacted the citizens directly and considered the construction of a new theater a difficult but fair decision. As he showed that they are preparing to start work on the new theater.
In addition to the start of the works, he also confirmed the approved project to be implemented, of the studio Bjarke Ingels Group. While more 29 June 2021, Veliaj announced that the National Council of the Territory approved the permit for the construction of the new Theater.
On July 5, 2021 expressed that the new year would find us with a construction site for the new theater.
But a year after this declaration, the government managed to throw the "first stone" today for the construction of the new Theater, with a deadline of 2024.
"The war makes the project of the National Theater more expensive"
Over the years, the government has DECLARING that he needs even more money for building the building.
Mayor Veliaj stated that because of the Russia-Ukraine war, the prices of construction materials have increased.
The form of construction has also changed, since in 2018, the private company "Fusha Sh.pk" presented an unsolicited proposal that envisaged the construction of a new theater, in exchange for multi-storey towers on public land.
The Albanian government accepted this proposal and began drafting a special law, which failed to be implemented after concerns about violations of fair competition and the Stabilization Association agreement.
The National Theater after the collapse
In May 2020, Veliaj declared that "the value of the new National Theater will reach 30 million euros, much of which will be provided with a loan". Loan which would be taken from commercial banks.
In November of the same year, the source of the money changed again. Veliaj promised that he would build the theater with money from the state budget, asking for 36 million euros.
In 2021, the Municipality of Tirana stated in the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, that work on the construction of the National Theater would start that summer, financed by a loan received from the Abu Dhabi Fund.
Currently, the budget forecast of the Albanian state for the theater has a value of 4.8 billion lek, where only 900 million lek have been transferred to the Municipality of Tirana.
Veliaj announced an increase in this budget, without giving details of how much money has been added. The decision of the City Council has not been made public either on the institution's official website.
He completed master's studies in Investigative Journalism at the Department of Journalism at the University of Tirana. She has been working as a journalist for five years, where she previously covered issues of politics and parliamentary activity, in print and online media. She is currently a journalist at Citizens.al, where she covers various social issues related to the transparency of institutions. At Citizens.al, she leads the podcast "The Unheard" and is engaged as a manager of projects related to the support of investigative journalism.
