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Veliaj: Only those who work can complete the 24-hour water project

Veliaj: Only those who work can complete the 24-hour water project

24-hour water in Tirana is a more feasible project, thanks to a series of investments made in these 8 years by the Municipality of Tirana, but also the investments that are foreseen in the future. In the presentation of the 5-year strategic plan of Tirana Water and Sewerage, the mayor Erion Veliaj brought to mind the work that has been done in recent years to transform the capital's water supply system.

Veliaj emphasized the fact that a supply system was managed, which was once built to serve a certain number of residents, but today, with the demographic changes and population growth in Tirana, the same network should supply all the capital.

"There are many people who rightly say: 'We are in 2023, will we still discuss Tirana 24 hours of water?' The drinking water network was expected to serve 190 thousand inhabitants in over 30 years, until the government of Sali Berisha finally transferred it to the municipalities as a responsibility - it was a network that served Tirana in '91-'92 with zero investment. The Tirana we manage today, compared to the Tirana of 2015, is 29 times larger as a territory. We went from a Tirana of 42 km2, to a Tirana of 1250 km2, so we are comparing Tirana 29 times bigger with 6 and a half times more water, compared to a Tirana 29 times smaller, with only 10% water in 24 hour. This means that our titanic effort has paid off.

The mayor mentioned the source of Guri Bardhë, as the project that will help to achieve the goal of 24 hours of water. "Tirana is in desperate need of a new water source and Guri i Bardhë is the best news we have today. Therefore, I am really encouraged that we found the financing and I want to thank all the colleagues of AKUM and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy", he said. Veliaj recalled that "at the time of Saliu and Iliri, when they ran the Municipality of Tirana, there was no free water, but others simply paid for it, even for those who did not pay the bill". Today, - he added, - the bills are paid proportionally to those who use it, therefore the UKT enterprise is in the best financial condition it has ever been in its history.

"Today is a tale from the past; today we know that we have a pipeline that comes from point A to point B, we have reduced losses by introducing the "SKADA" system, which shows us where we actually have losses in the network. There are losses in the network in every municipality, even in the municipality of New York, even in the municipality of London, but today we are on the day where we have the smallest losses that UKT has ever had," the mayor underlined.

Meanwhile, Veliaj recalled that the price of water in Tirana is at the lowest level in the country.