Prime Minister Edi Rama held a meeting today with experts from the National Agency for Information Society (AKSHI), who have been working on the development of the “Pasqyra Albania” platform, to learn more about its features and innovations.
During the discussion, Rama explained that the platform is built around four main pillars aimed at increasing transparency and strengthening interaction between citizens and public institutions.
According to the Prime Minister, the platform will allow citizens to monitor public investments and the progress of projects in their areas, access information about decisions made by municipalities and municipal councils, and track the status of their applications, services and complaints in real time, including the stages of their processing by the responsible institutions.
Another feature will enable citizens to share their opinions and suggestions on draft legislation undergoing public consultation.
Prime Minister Rama: “We are here with the excellent team from AKSHI, who have developed another extremely important project for us. This project emerged from the reflections that followed the large flamingo protests in early June and was promised as a significant step forward in the relationship between citizens and the state, and vice versa.
It aims to address a key issue, or rather the ‘Achilles’ heel’ of this relationship: complaints and requests getting lost in an ocean of bureaucracy.
At the same time, Pasqyra Albania includes a number of other features that bring the entire state before citizens through a single click and a single digital window.
Intensive work has been carried out, and we now have the result, which will soon be made accessible to the public.”
AKSHI Expert: “We have built Pasqyra Albania around four main pillars, allowing citizens to access information about all public investments. The aim is transparency regarding investments, but as you mentioned, Prime Minister, the objective is also to enable citizens to follow every step of their applications and complaints.
The first pillar is called ‘See’, allowing citizens to transparently view where investments are being made, what is being invested in their municipality, and learn about the priority initiatives and reforms being implemented by the state.”
Prime Minister Rama: “The idea behind this is connected to another commitment made within Pasqyra Albania: to provide all citizens with a tool through which they can personally view investments and monitor the progress of projects in any area of interest.
A citizen from Vlora, for example, will be able to see what is currently happening in their area, what stage projects have reached, and whether certain projects have been suspended or delayed for one reason or another.
This will allow citizens to confront every kind of ‘half-truth’, which is the biggest lie, not to mention the outright falsehoods spread daily through online portals and television channels.
Citizens themselves will be able to verify this information simply by opening Pasqyra Albania and seeing what is happening with public investments.”
AKSHI Expert: “The second pillar is called ‘Understand’, enabling citizens to understand the decisions being made by their municipalities.
Citizens will be able to access municipal decisions and draft decisions of municipal councils. They can search in real time for decisions approved in recent months.
We have uploaded all municipal council decisions from September onward, making them accessible to citizens.
We have also developed a Virtual Assistant to help citizens understand these decisions and provide summaries of the most recently approved measures in their respective municipalities.
The third pillar is the most important one, as it provides citizens with their own personal space.
By logging in through e-Albania, citizens will be able to monitor and track their applications, services and complaints.
There are two main sections, including ‘Citizen Applications’, where every application submitted through e-Albania is displayed, along with its actual status.”
Prime Minister Rama: “This brings us to the ‘Achilles’ heel’ I mentioned earlier, regarding which I made a commitment to turn every concern, request, complaint and problem into something like a DHL package.
Just as we send a package or letter through DHL and can track its location at every moment, we will do the same with complaints, requests, problems and concerns.
On the one hand, this will allow every citizen to see the status of their own ‘package’.
On the other hand, it will allow the administration, the relevant institutions and the different levels of institutional hierarchy to monitor in real time where a request or complaint has become stuck.
We may still have disagreements over whether an issue has been resolved, depending on how the state and the citizen view the outcome.
But there can no longer be disagreements over whether a response was provided.
Providing a response on time is an obligation that must remain a priority in this relationship.”
AKSHI Expert: “One of the innovations we have developed within Pasqyra Albania is that every service has a legally established deadline.
The institution is required to respond within that deadline.
If the deadline expires, the platform automatically detects the delay and notifies the citizen by SMS.
The notification also includes a link through which the citizen can immediately submit a complaint, which is then officially registered.”
Prime Minister Rama: “At the same time, an alert is sent to the institution’s hierarchy. All these complaints have their own unique identification codes.”
AKSHI Expert: “Yes, every complaint has a unique code.
Just as each service comes with a unique code from e-Albania, every complaint is registered with its own code in Pasqyra Albania and monitored through the co-governance system.
This is how complaints will be tracked.
Tracking will take place at the procedural level, meaning citizens will be able to see exactly where their complaint is within an institution and what stage of processing it has reached.
For example, whether additional information has been requested or whether the complaint is awaiting approval.
Complaints can also be tracked across different institutions.
If a citizen submits a complaint that requires the involvement of more than one institution, they will be able to see its status in each institution until a final response is provided.
The entire process will be managed and traceable at every institutional level.
The same applies to services, Prime Minister.
Every service provided through e-Albania will no longer be represented only by a tracking number. Citizens will be able to see all intermediate steps, identify where a service has been delayed and follow its progress until completion.”
Prime Minister Rama: “This is the tool technology provides us to address the widespread concerns people have about public administration, arrogance and the lack of responses.
Through this tool, citizens are empowered because they gain control over their complaints and requests.
At the same time, the administration is backed against the wall whenever it fails to respond on time or when a citizen’s complaint or request gets lost in that ocean of bureaucracy.”
AKSHI Expert: “Another section is dedicated to priority reforms and initiatives, providing citizens with information about all initiatives and reforms undertaken by the government.
By clicking on a particular initiative, citizens can learn who benefits from it, what its purpose is, which institutions are involved in its implementation and what documentation is required to participate.
They can also proceed directly to the application process through e-Albania.
The fourth pillar is called ‘Decide Together’, where citizens will be able to contribute to improving public initiatives.
Currently, this section is linked to the Public Consultation Register, allowing citizens to express their opinions on any draft act or project undergoing public consultation.”
Prime Minister Rama: “Within Pasqyra Albania, we also have the ‘Flamingo Mirror’, a section dedicated to projects of particular importance and issues attracting significant public attention.
The aim is to ensure that everyone has access to maximum transparency regarding matters they also hear about through various channels and sources of disinformation.
In other words, it is a mirror against disinformation, or rather, a tool for better information.”
AKSHI Expert: “We have also dedicated a section to bringing together the websites of all ministries and relevant institutions.
Citizens will be able to directly contact the institution they are looking for and access all information related to it.”
Prime Minister Rama: “Every institution will be included in this mirror.
Pasqyra Albania is an innovation that brings together the entire state, all its windows and doors, within the digital mirror of your mobile phone or computer.
With just one click, citizens can reach the window or knock on the door that interests them.
This platform makes the relationship between citizens and public administration much simpler and more direct.
At the same time, as I mentioned, it fully exposes the administration to our shared challenge, yours and mine, of ensuring an administration that serves citizens, responds within legally established deadlines and operates with complete transparency.”
AKSHI Expert: “We have also made it possible for Pasqyra Albania to be used not only through a website but also as an application on Android and iOS.
Citizens can download it directly from the website and use it as an application on their desktop computers or mobile phones.”
Prime Minister Rama: “Even e-Albania itself is integrated into Pasqyra Albania. Everything is included in the platform.”
AKSHI Expert: “In the coming days, we will also be able to create a direct communication channel between citizens and every institution.
This will not simply be communication through a chatbot, but direct communication with the relevant institution.
For example, if a pensioner needs specific information from an institution, such as the Social Insurance Institute, they will be able to communicate directly with that institution in real time and receive a response.
This interaction will also involve a designated individual appointed by the institution to respond to citizens’ requests in real time.
This will allow us not only to track complaints but also to understand and address citizens’ information needs before they even have to submit a complaint.”
Prime Minister Rama: “Meanwhile, this process will train artificial intelligence agents, which will eventually be able to handle these interactions without the need for a human operator.
After a certain period, because training and time are naturally required, the entire system will operate much faster.
It will become a system fully coordinated by superintelligence, meaning artificial intelligence, which has now begun entering a new phase known as superintelligence.
So the best is yet to come, and together we are all helping one another.
Once again, to conclude, Pasqyra Albania is one of the results of the reflections that followed the flamingo protests, that major demonstration in early June.
The rest is another story, which I will not mix with Pasqyra Albania, because otherwise we might end up dirtying the mirror.”
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