FLASH
Shkruar nga PamfletiAfter burning 80 million euros for "promotion", Rama's super-minister is asking for additional funds for propaganda projects, while monuments are destroyed and audits are blocked by political order...
With the normative act of June 11, 2025, which changed the budget of several ministries, the Ministry of Economy, Culture and Innovation benefited from an additional 31 million euros. But just a week later, Minister Blendi Gonxhe seems to have whetted his appetite for more. He has officially addressed the Ministry of Finance with a request for an additional 8 million euros, which – according to his claim – will be used for an “international campaign to promote cultural and historical heritage”, with the aim of attracting foreign tourists.
Essentially, this request is an over-repeated justification that has consumed over 80 million euros of public funds in the last 12 years, used for studies, publications, exhibitions, documentaries, conferences, advertisements in local and foreign media, funding for NGOs and folklore projects. In fact, the expenses for “heritage promotion” are 30% higher than the funds for the restoration and physical maintenance of monuments themselves.
But Minister Blendi Gonxhe, the self-proclaimed "ideatrix of cultural heritage," is not satisfied with either the existing budget or the 31 million euro addition. He wants more, and since he is considered one of Babloku's most trusted figures, the government's chief financier, Petrit Malaj, is expected to immediately give him another 8 million euros, without any detailed control over the content of the project or the real budget of the expenses.
According to "Pamfleti" sources, no auditor is daring to check the 2024 funds in this "super-ministry", although the three-month legal deadline for annual audits has passed. The ministry headed by Blendi Gonxhe administers 45% of the entire state budget and 60% of public assets, including the economy, the tender agency and cultural heritage sites.
Despite the fact that these monuments, such as Butrint, the forts and museum spaces, are used for tourist purposes and are given under lease or concession contracts, the ministry does not report any direct profit from them. Money is spent, but the income is unknown.
In reality, the request for an additional 8 million euros is not related to love for heritage, but to the desire to extort more public funds through elaborate projects, as he did in his previous positions: as deputy mayor, as director of Tirana parks, and later as director of road transport. In none of these positions has he been investigated or punished for the reported abuses, despite numerous indications.
Today, he is the same person who is allowing the destruction of the Lëkurës Castle in Saranda, which has been usurped for the construction of a resort by the well-known drug trafficker Andrea Çaushi, and is in the process of being given over for the construction of villas and palaces to Dajlan Avdian, another figure with precedents and close ties to the dome of power.
Another significant fact: out of the 20 million euros planned for the restoration of monuments last year, 11 million were spent on ministry offices, reconstructions, furnishings, payments to external experts, additions to the staff, and funding for NGOs and folklore groups that appear every time "Babloku pret konteni širiti" (Babloku is waiting for a strip).
If these 8 million euros requested by Gonxhe are approved without any accounting, then it is clear: the heritage objects are simply another pretext for abuse, while the state treasury has become a personal coffer for the people of Edi Rama's political court./ Pamphlet
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