In a reaction to the serious fire situation in Himara, Democratic Party MP Ina Zhupa accuses the Himara Municipality of a lack of political will in using public funds to protect citizens.

Zhupa emphasizes that, despite the municipality's high budget and tenders that, according to her, this year amount to over 130 million euros, the fire service continues to lack the necessary capacities for immediate intervention.

She demands that the Municipality of Himara urgently create a special compensation fund for residents affected by the fire, arguing that public money should serve citizens and not for facades and secondary projects.

Ina Zhupa's full reaction:

The fire in Himara highlighted a truth that can no longer be hidden behind propaganda. The Municipality of Himara lacks the political will to direct money where it serves and protects citizens.

Himara is filled with concrete, while the Municipality's coffers are filled with millions of euros. All these millions of euros also come from the donation of public lands to strategic investors. The Municipality of Himara has a budget of about 10 thousand euros per capita, while Tirana itself, the largest city and the main economic power of the country, has less than 1 thousand euros per capita. In one year alone, there are over 130 million euros in tenders from Vangjel Tavo.

With this money, Himara should have had a model fire service, with the means, equipment, personnel, and capacity to intervene immediately as soon as a fire starts. Not wait for hours until the flames reach proportions that exceed any local capacity.

When public money goes to facades, projects, and decoration tenders and does not go to services that protect life and property, then the citizen pays the consequences.

The citizen pays with the house that burns down. With the land that is lost. With the business that is destroyed. With a life's savings that disappear within a few hours.

I call on the Himara Municipality to urgently decide on a special compensation fund for residents affected by the fire, with a realistic assessment of the damage and prompt payment because it has all the financial capacity.

Residents have not simply lost a burnt hectare. They have lost their property, their home, their job, their savings, and their life's work. Public money should be for the citizens, they cannot be left abandoned in the face of these huge losses.