Why don't we have a system of punishment for the use of the public?

By Mero Baze

The extensive material of SPAK, at least that which has been submitted to the Court, about the investigation of 15 persons related to the procedures of the Incenerator in Tirana, appears to have found them suspects because they are part of the procedures for approval of the contract. In the majority we are dealing with persons who are members of the Tender Commission in different points of the process and which is categorized as abuse of duty.

Two of the officials, one of whom is retired, has been given prison sentences, although he has nothing to do with destroying evidence or revocation of his signatures.

However without prejudice to the in-depth investigation of SPAK, the campaign for investigating corruption, which often affects mid-level officials who are there because of their duty, needs a criminal policy that creates security for an employee when he accepts a task where he has to sign.

Except that such a punishment style puts the administration into a deadlift and we may find ourselves in the face of the phenomenon that no one will accept to go to the state offices, the introduction of people without any weight in the process, such as pensioner Namik Simici, makes and frustrating a task in the Albanian state offices.

It's not the first case. In Bulqiza while arrested the mayor, within the day, 12 other municipal officials were taken to prison, virtually locking up the offices.

Nearly two years ago, almost all members of the police uniforms tender commission were arrested and then during the process they were arrested in vain and many of them turned out innocent, while being traumatized.

Same with the trial of a VAT tender, where director Thoma Gëllçi was sentenced, and members of the Tender Commission were taken to prison.

I do not want to prejudge the case, but the practically investigation of all members of the Commission leaves the taste of a campaign of punishment.

An official of state may deliberately err for corrupt reasons, may err unintentionally, may also err by ignorance. So you have to be thoroughly investigated before you arrest him, put him in jail and then see if you don't find anything on the way.

That a prosecutor is wrong when he arrests people in vain, and they gain innocence, but we still have no punishment system for the useless imprisonment of a citizen, as he sues the state and is compensated by the state.

Therefore, a unified standard is needed for when a state official must be arrested in advance and when to be investigated on the grounds of duty.

In some other countries in the region, mainly in Romania and Croatia, such punitive campaigns on the administration brought strong job crises in the administration, pushing the state into the borders of collapse.

It started in Albania too. In several central divisions, including the Minister, there have been resignations where you are required to engage as commissioner in a tender or that you have a responsibility to certify a procurement process or contract signing.

They are watching the fate of their colleagues, who they know are not guilty of.

The investigation of incensed incenerators is one of the most important actions of SPAK, which has affected the highest political levels in the country and for this it deserves congratulation.

And it would be a good case for this investigation not to bring together the people who have captured the state, and the state-owned ones caught by them, with the administration officials, who are there to carry out procedures for which they receive the salary.

Putting these two categories in the same bag may save us from state capture, but it can leave us without a state at all.

Since if a former minister like Fatmir Mediu is tried free, even though he is accused of 26 murdered (and in this case I am with Fatmir Mediu, although I am a permanent denouncer of him and his associate Shkëlzen Berisha), while a clerk like Namik Simixhiu, an old retired engineer, is put in prison, for having been a member of the commission in a tender, Then for minister and you can find a candidate in this country, but for a member of the committee hardly anyone comes.