An investor, local or foreign, interested in a certain sector in Albania, today finds it very difficult to find information, to have an analysis of the situation in this market, the number of existing companies, the services offered by these companies, the taxes to be paid, the services received from the state institutions or the projects envisaged by the government for the development of this industry. This is because data and complete information are missing.
The first step, which anyone in these conditions would do, is to open the official website of the ministry that covers the sector. If you look at all the pages of the ministries, not only those related to business and economy, you will find that complete information is missing. There you can find almost all official meetings of ministers or other heads of departments, with general overviews and professional photos, or even decisions of the Council of Ministers, but it is difficult, almost impossible to find useful information about what you are interested for. According to Mr.Arben Shkodra, General Secretary of the Producers' Association, this is a considerable concern for the enterprise. This is because if you are going to invest, information is the first thing you do and for this you must have someone in the relevant ministry or institution; otherwise, you're lost. The official websites of the ministries, where transparency should also be done with the public and interested actors, do not help at all.
"If an entrepreneur wants to know more information about a certain sector that is covered by a ministry in the field of responsibility, their portals have almost basic information. It is not updated, but it can also be truncated. This means that the entrepreneur still needs to know someone in the line ministry, to communicate with someone, to receive exhaustive explanations in order to carry out its business operation. Here are not only the ministries, but also the dependent agencies, which are even more problematic, since they have completely basic information and do not have detailed and updated information", explains Shkodra.
For the lawyer Mr. Jordan Daci, the official websites of the institutions have improved significantly in recent years. But the problem remains the lack of an up-to-date information and how it is perceived; sometimes it is too technical and unusable for the majority of the public.
"I think that the problem still remains, for example, in not updating the rules and laws, which have changed, and often, they should be updated in real time, since for a non-advanced user with knowledge in the legal field, it will be very difficult to put together the changing rules, the texts that keep changing. So, it should be the duty of every institution to update in real time in their websites the laws that regulate their field of operation. Also, I think the information is still sufficiently raw and not readily perceptible and usable by the general public. I think that we should move to simpler, more concise, more abbreviated information in bullet points, especially in terms of the criteria for receiving a service, etc. I believe that this can be done", says Daci.
The content of the official websites of the ministries
From an observation of the official websites of the 11 ministries, it turns out that they are almost identical. Here we are not referring to the graphic presentation, which is logically the same, but to the content. The main news on the site are the official meetings of the ministers, accompanied by photos and a text with general words. In fact, the official website can reflect several meetings held in one day, which do not necessarily constitute public interest, as they are part of the incumbent's work process, or their speeches in parliament and other activities, where they are invited into. Certain ministries, which also cover specific fields, have information on certain issues, but it is very technical and often truncated. On the official website of the Ministry of Finance, data on the progress of the budget, related to income and expenses, are published; data related to the progress of the public debt; data on the financial progress of the local government; decisions of the Transparency Board on fuels and prices; Strategies for Public Finance Management, etc. For the most part, the information is published and transparent, but it is technical and difficult for the general public to understand.
On the official website of the Ministry of Health, you can usually find the speeches of the minister in various activities or official publications about the situation of COVID 19 and related vaccines. But there is a lack of detailed information on specific issues or priorities of this department. The same with the Ministry of Education and Sports. Most of the information on the official website of this department is about the minister's official meetings and her speeches at various events, parliament or government meetings. The same thing happens with the rest of the official websites of the ministries.
Information and transparency
A truncated information indicates a lack of transparency. Citizens and businesses today find it difficult to find accurate and complete information. For example, to know what the annual budget of the Ministry of Justice is, you cannot find it on the official website of this department. To get this figure, you need to enter the official website of the Ministry of Finance and Economy, find in the "Reports" section, the "Budget in years" section and click there to find the 2022 Budget. Then, browse this draft to find the budget of the Ministry of Justice. A search path that not everyone can do, or not everyone has information on how to find it. When very simply, this figure could be on the official website of the Ministry of Justice, since this budget enables the annual activity of the entire department.
Mr. Arben Shkodra of the Association of Producers explains that there are problems with information and according to him, this is intentional. "In terms of information, it leaves something to be desired, as I personally think that it is premeditated. So, with a conscience that information is the least in order for not only the citizen, but also the business to knock on the doors of the public authorities. We see this with public consultation. Although there is a law on public consultation, only 10-15% of legal acts go through a proper public consultation process. The rest is either done as if consulted, i.e. the draft is given to the enterprise at the last moment or it is not given at all", says Shkodra.
"A distinction must be made between transparency for reasons of accountability and the correct application of the law with transparency or having information available to the public in terms of facilitating public access to the services they offer and so on," argues lawyer Jordan daci. But even here, business has something to say. The provision of online services has not been accompanied by online information on how to deal with the institutions.
"Regarding the right to information that the business has, based on the legal and by-laws, at the moment we are talking, it seems that there is a digital agenda or online services and what is expected is that in addition to having online services, there also a complete online information on how an entrepreneur should operate in relations with public authorities. From what we see, it's something else entirely. So, if we talk about online services, we only have online applications. But then you have to continue to contact and process everything from the public authorities in hard copy, that is, on paper and then, of course, the answer can be returned online", explains Arben Shkodra.
In a virtual world, information is nobody's property. But in terms of transparency and good information, at least public data and official information should be accessible in the right place, which are the official websites of the ministries, in a simple and understandable way for all users, such as a guide that, if it does not guide you clearly, does not lead you to your destination.
This article was produced under ICEDA project, co-financed by the European Union and implemented by Metamorphosis Foundation (North Macedonia), e-Governance Academy (Estonia), Partners Serbia (Serbia), NGO 35mm (Montenegro), Open Data Kosovo (Kosovo) and MJAFT! Movement (Albania).
This article was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of MJAFT! Movement and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.