By Gjergj Erebara
Tirana Times, April 11, 2026 – Prime Minister Edi Rama recently declared that he feels offended by the widespread assumption that his government is systemically corrupt, offering as a counterargument that this “cannot be true” because the country is experiencing economic growth. This is an unconvincing argument.
In an apparent effort to campaign without elections, and in the hope of recovering some of the image of a political leader heading a force widely perceived as systemically corrupt, Rama stated that he “rejects with disgust” the suggestion that he leads a corrupt party and government, or that the country is in the grip of predatory systemic corruption. He supported his claim with the assertion that “if corruption had increased, the economy would not be growing.”
It is widely known that corruption, whether in the form of weak ethics across society or as government malpractice, constitutes a major obstacle to both human and economic development. Government corruption leads to the misallocation of resources, while social corruption undermines the enforcement of contracts and agreements, reducing productivity. In short, corruption destroys capital—both physical assets and human knowledge.
The problem, however, is that although corruption plays a significant role in hindering development, it is not the only factor shaping economic outcomes. Corruption—whether at the governmental level or across society—is neither uniform nor easily reducible to a single variable.
If we follow the prime minister’s logic, we might conclude that between 1993 and 2008 Albania experienced average annual economic growth of 6.5 percent, whereas from 2009 to 2025 growth averaged around 3 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund. Does this mean that in the first 15 years after the fall of communism there was half as much corruption as today? Or that in the subsequent 16 years corruption has doubled?
Corruption, of course, is not something that can be measured with precision, unlike economic growth, which itself involves a considerable degree of estimation. We cannot know exactly how much corruption existed under the Democratic government (1992–1997), the Socialist governments (1997–2005), the coalitions of the Democratic Party and LSI, or the Socialist Party and LSI, nor after 2017, when the Socialists have governed alone and no longer have coalition partners to blame.
We do know that in the immediate post-communist period there was oil smuggling, organized crime, human trafficking, and corruption in construction permits. We know there was corruption under subsequent Socialist and Democratic governments alike. We also know that as the economy has grown, so too has the pool of resources available to be misused by those in power. In 2002, during a well-known meeting among Socialists, members accused each other of corruption, with one describing the party as having taken on the features of “medieval principalities,” a metaphor for decentralized, cell-based corruption.
We also know that when Sali Berisha, who came to power in 2005 on an anti-corruption platform, was asked about corruption, he described it as a “lubricant”—a necessary element to make the machinery function. The metaphor imagined the state as a rusty mechanism that citizens must grease with bribes in order to make it work.
Likewise, Rama himself declared not long ago that anti-corruption is “a medicine worse than the disease.” This analogy reaches a grotesque level, suggesting that governance is a vital body which, if targeted by anti-corruption institutions such as SPAK, would cause harm to society at large, as if citizens cannot function without it.
Economic growth is the natural condition of humanity. Economies grow because people become more capable. They learn, accumulate knowledge, and find ways to produce more goods and services with less effort. Growth is the result of the collective effort of society, whereas government corruption is the work of a relatively small number of individuals—namely, corrupt officials.
Corruption is a broad term that does not always reflect reality accurately. When Berisha referred to corruption as a lubricant nearly two decades ago, he was essentially referring to what is colloquially known as “bakshish”—small payments made to expedite services. This differs from bribery, where a citizen pays to obtain something they are not entitled to, such as paying a traffic police officer to avoid a fine.
Yet there existed another phenomenon that did not fit either category. Traffic police officers operated within a pyramid of corruption, paying to secure their jobs and then extracting money from motorists to recover their “investment.” This is neither tipping nor bribery; it is extortion. The “lubricant” metaphor does little to explain such dynamics.
These forms of corruption, however, are trivial compared to others. One such form, popularly referred to as the “customs barrier,” has little to do with actual customs offices. It reflects a system where officials create multiple layers of extraction—through concessions, monopolies, oligopolies, public tenders, and state agencies. As these barriers multiply, citizens become exhausted and choose to emigrate to more functional societies, such as Germany.
The issue with the current government is not the existence of corruption—corruption exists everywhere. The real question is whether it is individual or systemic. Cases such as AKSHI and the “Balluku affair” clearly suggest that corruption is systemic.
And systemic corruption does not allow the economy to flourish as it should. Albania is a country that could and should grow at 6 or 7 percent annually over two or three decades in order to reach the economic level of countries like Croatia, Romania, or Poland. At 3 percent growth, the country falls behind.
According to IMF data, measured in international dollars, Poland’s GDP per capita is currently about $32,000 higher than Albania’s and is projected to reach a $38,000 gap by 2030. The so-called economic growth that Rama points to as evidence that “there is no corruption” appears to exist only in his statements.
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