Citizens who suffered from the 2019 earthquake have been forgotten by authorities.

Municipalities and the reconstruction ministry haven’t approved payments for the repair of damaged homes for nearly half of them.

According to a statement made by the State Reconstruction Committee, the total number of households that have received funding as a result of damages from the 2019 earthquakes is 45.459 out of 83.745 that were classified as partially damaged.

The minister for reconstruction, Arben Ahmetaj, has only called for a meeting of the Reconstruction Committee, on 5 occasions this year, and only provided financial help for 939 families.

In 2020, the Reconstruction Committee convened 69 times and approved the allocation of funds for damaged homes and apartments belonging to 31.935 families.

In total, 79 million euros in funding was allocated and an average of 2.500 euros per family.

Last year, which was an electoral year, the Committee approved 29 verdicts, by allocating reconstruction funds to 12.585 families.

In total, 47.5 million euros in funding was approved last year, roughly 3800 euros per building.

This year, the total value of reconstruction funding approved is only 5.7 million euros.

The number of families approved for funding over the years has gone down but in the few instances when they have received funding, the amount has gone up where a single family has gotten an average of 6.100 euros.

38 000 families are expecting to get their funds approved – a procedure that only required the Reconstruction Committee to meet.

Unfortunately, this isn’t taking place and we are only 4 months away from the promised target when according to the government, all work on the earthquake reconstruction project would have ended.