
Governments, political parties and individuals with special positions have spent more than 3.6 million dollars on 34 lobbying contracts in the last 10 years in the United States of America alone.
Referring to data from the American Department of Justice, most of these contracts were concluded in 2011; 2012; 2019 and 2020, the period coincides with election years or political crisis in our country.
The same can be ascertained for the value spent, with over 1.2 million dollars in 2011, 641 thousand in 2012 and 248 thousand and 798 thousand, respectively for the years 2016 and 2017.
Half of these expenses were carried out on behalf of the Government of Albania, at the time when the country was ruled by democrats. The list continues with the Democratic Party, the Socialist Movement for Integration, now baptized as the Freedom Party and finally the Socialist Party.
But these millions are only a part of the spending on lobbying contracts. Therefore, according to experts, it is urgent to set up control mechanisms to supervise the millions of governments, parties and individuals in millions of contracts for lobbying.
Lobbying contracts are mainly focused on improving the image of political parties and not only, but also for the opportunity to meet with various officials in the United States of America and other influential countries.
Therefore, the most important moments that have caused not only public debate but also problems with American justice are the lobbying for photos with the American presidents of Edi Rama in 2012 and Lulzim Basha with Donald Trump./ A2