Tirana Municipality continues to hide from confrontation with CNA

2026-07-07 17:51:00, Aktualitet CNA

Just as the arrested mayor Erion Veliaj is hiding from facing the Special Court, the Municipality of Tirana is refusing to face the Commissioner for the Right to Information and Personal Data Protection. For 7 months, CNA has been in an open legal battle to secure official documentation of public interest, but the local institution continues to use every procedural artifice to avoid accountability.

CNA Investigation/ Towards another major affair in the capital
March 16, 12:23

The hearing was scheduled to take place on Wednesday, July 8, 2026. However, just one day before the hearing, the Commissioner for the Right to Information officially announced its postponement. The reason given was the absence of the acting mayor of Tirana, Anuela Ristani.

Tirana Municipality continues to hide from confrontation with CNA

Notice of adjournment of the session

This justification turns the situation into an institutional absurdity. If a deputy mayor is absent, doesn't the Municipality of Tirana have other deputy mayors, a general secretary or an entire army of lawyers to represent it?! According to this logic, the largest municipality in the country "dies" and is completely paralyzed when a single individual is absent, leaving the implementation of the law in limbo.

This latest move is a clear attempt by the municipality to gain time and delay transparency. As has been repeatedly denounced in previous CNA articles, concealing information has become a standard practice for this institution. We have also written publicly about this data and have addressed the Commissioner, not wishing to raise premature accusations, but to conduct a clean professional investigation.

Our request is very simple: transparency about the advertising contracts that the Municipality of Tirana has awarded at its events, as well as full transparency about the income that this institution has collected from these activities. But the Municipality of Tirana refuses to make them available.

The affair that the Municipality of Tirana is hiding
May 27, 14:35

It is no longer possible for an institution covered in scandals, affairs and corruption to mock the media and hide the truth. Every official still remaining in that municipality must at least have the courage and legal responsibility, like those who have already provided us with the information, to publish and make transparent the data that is requested.

This obligation is not only towards CNA, but towards the citizens of Tirana, the public and taxpayers, who need to know who has benefited from the mismanagement of this institution or who has found room to abuse and line their pockets through schemes recommended by the leaders of this municipality.

According to the official announcement, the hearing will be scheduled for a second time after July 10. However, no maneuver to postpone the confrontation will close this matter. CNA will continue to seek this data until the last moment with professionalism and every official responsible for concealing it will have to answer before the law, from the first to the last, without any exception./CNA