Alimehmeti: Veliaj has governed Tirana with false promises

2026-05-01 19:33:00, Aktualitet CNA

DP member and physician Ilir Alimehmeti has stated that Tirana has significant problems with governance.

In an interview for Syri TV, Alimehmeti said that Erion Veliaj, now in prison for 13 serious charges, has never governed the capital properly. This is because he did the opposite of what he had promised when he was elected mayor.

Alimehmeti, further spoke about air pollution, which according to him comes from traffic and construction. The latter, he said, were one of the many promises, where Veliaj has done the opposite of what he said. He also expressed criticism of the Municipal Council, saying that they have turned into "notaries".

Regarding pollution, Alimehmeti also said that the Municipality of Tirana has not conducted any official air quality measurements since 2016, violating a legal obligation.

"It is not being governed, it has not been governed for a long time. Erion Veliaj has never had any proper governance of the country. The first moment he entered the municipality, the promise was that we would impose a moratorium, that there should be no construction. He did exactly the opposite and in Tirana, air pollution comes from two elements, fuels, that is, traffic, directly related to the Municipality of Tirana and construction. So the level of logic of private, public construction, and so on, construction that is delayed in time and outside technical limits, as you know very well. And today, now that he is in prison, there should have been a political solution in Tirana and early elections should have been allowed, in such a way that there would be proper governance and there would be governance not only by the Mayor, but also by the Municipal Council, because the Municipal Council, just like the parliament, you have already seen that these imitate each other, have turned into notaries.

There is no discussion and we are in this situation that we are in. Just to give you some figures on what happened, because this did not happen overnight, it happened over the years. In the Municipality of Tirana, air quality levels have never been measured. There is a legal obligation, but this has never been done. We have denounced it many times in the Democratic Party, we have requested it many times in the Municipal Council when we were there. It is never there and in fact the European Environment Agency has said and says it very clearly on its official website, the data is missing since 2016 onwards. So, coincidentally fixed since Erjon Veliaj came to power. And if you look, in 2014 there were 49 entities in total equipped with environmental permits, which have grown exponentially reaching 609 in 2023. And this is the report of the Municipality of Tirana itself. And, which was served to us and was also given for public hearings. You know that these figures are always retouched, adjusted and yet in these figures we see every kind of level above the standard. This is in terms of air quality. If you take into account the traffic part, you have it very clear that practically nothing has been done. It has only added buildings, the buildings have narrowed the roads. And even roads of major interest, such as the entrance to Tirana, in the area of ??the former customs, Shqiponja Square, with only a few buildings that were placed, the roads were narrowed there, the initial project was completely transformed and now it is turning into chaos", said Alimehmeti. /CNA