FLASH
Shkruar nga Irena Beqiraj
While ordinary administrative corruption breaks the rules, when state capture occurs, corruption rewrites them...
Most people think of corruption as a politician taking bribes, or a public official embezzling money. But there is a deeper and more dangerous form of corruption, which is state capture.
While ordinary administrative corruption breaks the rules, when state capture occurs, corruption rewrites them. State capture is the stage when oligarchs, companies, criminal networks transform the machinery of democracy into a mechanism for their own enrichment and power. In this stage, technically, attempts are made to protect corrupt activities by law, and the government is transformed from a government “for the people” into a company that aims to maximize profit. In conditions when corruption rewrites the laws, the circulation of money becomes a necessity and the abandonment of the public good a necessity.
In the captured state, the management of public property is reorganized in such a way that the use of public property is channeled into only a few hands, bypassing the rules of transparency and accountability. In recent years alone, we have experienced 10 cases where, without competition, without transparency and without accountability, the investment corporation has acted as an instrument of concentration and systematic appropriation of public assets.
In the captured state, the law is used as a unilateral incentive instrument for the transfer of property without competitive procedures and without transparency from the public and ordinary residents to a certain group of companies that, not surprisingly, are also beneficiaries of other public contracts.
Since 2015, through the Strategic Investment Law, the government has transferred over 5.8 km² of agricultural land and land mainly in the valuable southern coastal area to strategic investors, through 1 euro lease contracts (excluding Sazan and Zvërnec). The law has also further damaged the private property of ordinary citizens by transferring it at ridiculous values into the hands of oligarchs. For example, through the law adopted in 2020 “On the Integrated Management of Coastal Areas”, the government has stripped coastal landowners of the right to sell or freely develop their land, giving the state the right to pre-empt any private land on the coast or forcing owners to develop it only through PPP contracts or as a strategic investment.
Also in the captured state, the distortion of procurement procedures is easily carried out through state-owned enterprises (SOEs) which are used as an instrument to strengthen the connections between politicians and private actors, serving as tools for the legitimization of corruption. Excellent examples of the use of state-owned enterprises to transfer public property and money to the private sector without procedures are Kayo and the network of companies created under it, the initiative to transfer the activity of AKSHIT to a commercial company with state participation, or the now bankrupt AIR ALBANIA.
The ultimate indicator of state capture is the deliberate dismantling of mechanisms that hold public officials accountable for the management of state assets. This includes the weakening of the justice system and the judiciary.
State capture is the most dangerous mutation of corruption: there corruption governs, corruption legitimizes, corruption buys silence. The more state capture is consolidated, the more irreversible the damage is, and reforms become simply morphine that soothes the pain of degradation.
But let's be honest, state capture is not just the work of the individual who runs the state, in fact, it is the elites, with their actions or inactions, who are the main enablers of state capture.
Beyond the party mercenaries of the Assembly, who certify the state capture every day, are the judges, economists, university professors, analysts, expert journalists, and dedicated television shows, who construct and distribute narratives that justify the actions of state capture. They are the ones who provide the ideological framework in the media that justifies the "use" of state institutions to serve narrow interests.
Also, for corrupt activities to appear legal, it is not enough to have Taulanti, Ulsiu, Zeqineja, Sara, Zamira, or even Bajram Bega, the involvement of lawyers, policy experts, and consultants is needed to draft political legislation or transactions that favor specific interests. It is the elites who draft complex, seemingly legal frameworks that facilitate the transfer of public resources into private hands.
As if they were experts, they were recruited to fill the parliamentary anti-corruption commission, ensuring its legitimacy while also masking its true intentions.
Not only due to the individual devilish abilities of the prime minister, nor only to the inability of the opposition to unite in a front, but also to the active participation of a spirited elite army in the capture of the state, elections have turned into empty rituals, and Albanians find themselves living in a state that looks like a democracy on paper, but in reality functions like a cartel.
The captured state is a clash between public will and political power, a clash that cannot be ignored, nor can it be minimized to a purely partisan task.
To escape the invasion by the corrupt beyond a party opposition that aims to come to power, we need public will, a civil intellectual elite that is active and ready to defend with knowledge, faith and courage, democracy's need for good governance.
Irena je nga ata shumë të paktët që i ke qëndruar afër parasë dhe nuk je korruptuar. Kjo 1 , e dyta je mallkuar me mençuri, në kuptimin që të tjerët e shijojnë a nuk e kuptonë (idiocia është dhuratë e natyrës), Mençuria sot është mallkim po qe se nuk shoqërohet me korrupsion .
Ke shume te drejte Z.Irena,po ketu kemi te bejme me nje grup zvaranikesh,te cilet degjonin me goje hapur krueministrin,duke folur pa llogjike dhe njekohesisht duke genjyer.Ky ose mendon,qe ka nje popull budalla,ose vete nuk eshte ne rregull.Mire,qe nuk kishin nxjerre dhe bloqet per te mbajtur shenim.Mu duken si ne Korene e veriut dhe i ndoqa per ta pare kete cfaqe deri ne fund.Ketu vidhet me ligj,po tani qe dicka nuk shkon erdhi koha,qe dhe hajdutet te mbrohen me ligj.Te shohim,cdo behet.Sa per elitat,qe thoni,ato i jane drejtuar lekut dhe nuk ekziston parimi.