At first glance, the Albanian state appears to be an ordinary administrative structure, with institutions, civil servants and legal mechanisms that should serve citizens. But a deeper look by economic expert Zef Preçi reveals a much more problematic reality, the existence of several parallel layers within the administration itself, which not only make the system inefficient, but also directly burden taxpayers.

On one side we have the active administration, often criticized for politicization and patronage, on the other an "army" of civil servants in legal proceedings, awaiting reinstatement or compensation, and in the background, an administration in waiting, tied to political rotations and the logic of capturing institutions.

In this analysis for the newspaper "Panorama", Zef Preçi raises concerns about three parallel realities that coexist at the expense of citizens.

Encouraging the Albanian Parliament in its efforts to build bridges between taxpayers and the country's governments (otherwise, those in power), I was introduced to the report on the Activity of the Commissioner for the Supervision of the Civil Service for the year 2025 (https://konsultimipublik.al/konsultime/58). Among other things, this report emphasizes that, "...if we analyze the activity of the Administrative Court of Appeal, it will be noted that during the year 2025, out of 26285 cases that were to be tried, only 3126 cases were completed, while 23159 cases remain unfinished."

Meanwhile, the same report confirms that with our taxes in the 205 state institutions supervised by it, a total of 16343 employees in central and local public administration positions were paid during the same year, with a slight increase of 1,5% compared to the previous year, but this is another issue. From the data of this report deposited in the Albanian Parliament, it is seen that in the Albanian state, the cases of court cases with employees removed from the system are 40% higher than the total number of job positions in the state civil service.

It is no exaggeration to call this contingent of civil servants a parallel administration, which at the very least demands to be paid until the final decision of the court is made, without mentioning the fact that a significant part of the civil servants who are in legal proceedings with the government are demanding their return to their previous jobs (the average age in the public service, according to the same report, is 42 years old). Many, without thinking twice, point the finger at the judiciary, which is also what the report in question does, emphasizing that “…taking into account the current capacity of this court, if the pace of completing cases remains the same, it would take about 7.4 years to close only the existing stock, without counting the new cases that are registered every year”. Personally, I think that is not and should not be the case.

In my opinion, it is essential to see how the number of such cases that burden the state budget has been created and continues to increase every year. And in this perspective, there is no doubt that bad governance, the concentration of the exercise of power in the hands of a few elif matrak officials who, under the armor of political protection offered by KM Rama and his government, violate the law with both feet by unjustly dismissing diligent state employees, to fill the civil service with patrons, family members of high-ranking officials, occult extensions of business lobbies and even segments of organized crime. To understand how this stock of employees was created at the doors of the courts, I tried to decipher the reports of previous years of the Commissioner for the Supervision of the Civil Service, but unfortunately, apart from some lectures that artificial intelligence easily offers today, I could not even find the total number of employees of this service. And this belongs to the period when the great fraud with "Diella" was still a "project" of the ANA structured criminal group...

Of course, I cannot agree with the suggestions of the 2025 report on the need to “…increase the powers of the Commissioner for the administrative handling of individual complaints in civil service relations, as a preliminary and mandatory stage before the judicial review of his binding decisions …by preventing the suspensive effect of the appeal to the court”. This is because if we want our state to function according to the Constitution, the position of the court must be respected unconditionally.

While when we talk about the judiciary, it is appropriate to remember that the “mountain of files”, in suspense, was created by the lack of the relevant body and for this the political class was and is quite clear, but I think that there is a lack of will to refresh and complete this body. It is enough to remember that there are several thousand law graduates in neighboring countries, especially in Italy, who with a set of quick professional tests could be integrated into our justice system, without having to be “filtered” politically (and not only) through the School of Magistrates… Two more words about the fiscal burden of these cases in court, a total of 23159 of them. If we take into account the average monthly salary in the public sector of 103,000 lek (INSTAT, 2025) and the minimum waiting time of 5 years, it turns out that we have to pay at least 30 million euros per year from our taxes. This is also the cost of misgovernance and irresponsibility of the political class for which it must one day give account. This is also the "second administration", the largest of the Albanian state.

I think it has become necessary to increase individual responsibility and punitive measures against officials who, with their actions and inactions, cause financial damage to the state budget. In addition to these two administrations, one in operation, mainly filled with patronage and the other awaiting payment after the court decision, but which claims that its rights under the civil service law have been violated, there is also a third administration, which I would prefer to call the “shadow administration”. We are talking about that group of individuals who stand behind the DP and other opposition parties awaiting the rotation of power, motivated perhaps by the same mentality, i.e., the mentality of occupying state institutions in the name of quick enrichment and without contributions, a career linked to the most politically and financially powerful individuals and not with the provision of public services to citizens according to state laws. And analyzing these three administrations, I cannot help but feel sorry for my taxes. But I feel more sorry for our children who are forced to live in this kind of state that has become one with power, where maintaining power at all costs is the alpha and omega of governance, which makes "average citizens" feel excluded even though they still administratively live in Albania...

/ Panorama newspaper