MASTER'S THESIS - SuSanA
MASTER'S THESIS - SuSanA
MASTER'S THESIS - SuSanA
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
APPENDIX C – Site visits<br />
4 Site visit 4: Commune Hajmel<br />
Date: 24.01.2012<br />
Commune:<br />
Mayor of commune:<br />
Hajmel (consists of five villages with 6,075 inhabitants in total)<br />
Leke Bibaj<br />
Mobil: 0672637022<br />
Phone: 026560008<br />
kommunahajmel@gmail.com<br />
Villages:<br />
Hajmel and Nënshat<br />
Commune was visited with Dritan Pistoli, the Social Inspector of ADF, who explained the situation in the<br />
commune and translated the interview. The commune consists of five villages with 6,075 inhabitants in<br />
total and has four water supply systems. The village Nënshat is part of an old ADF project for drinking water<br />
supply, financed by German KfW. The system was finished in 2006 and works by gravity and is therefore<br />
easy to handle. The other three water supply systems of the commune work with pumps.<br />
The commune is covered by an utility, but it was stated by Dritan Pistoli that the service of the utility is not<br />
that well. After finishing the water supply project in Nënshat, the project was handed over to the commune<br />
that wants to run the service for that village themselves. According to the mayor of the commune, Leke<br />
Bibaj, the commune can take care of the people’s welfare better that the utility, as the chief of the utility is<br />
not very linked to the area and can change every few years.<br />
One of the problems of the water utility is that they employ too many workers and therefore the service is<br />
very expensive. A reform of the structure is recommended. For three villages of 600 families in total, the<br />
utility employs nine workers, what means one worker for 70 families. The service of Nënshat is under the<br />
commune that employs two workers (one full-time, one part-time) for 400 families with around 2,100<br />
people. This shows that the commune works more effective and cost saving than the utility and should be<br />
supported.<br />
The problem is that the commune has no license and runs the service illegally without tariffs approved by<br />
the WRA. According to Dritan Pistoli, the two solutions for this problem would be to join the existing<br />
shareholder company (utility) or to create an own shareholder company in order to get the necessary<br />
license. The main purpose of visiting the commune was to talk with the mayor of communes about the two<br />
options and the future strategy. Additionally, there was the chance to talk with the mayor of communes<br />
about the sanitary situation in the commune and the general attitude of people towards that topic.<br />
In general, what could be seen in the commune without visiting all villages, streets and houses seemed to<br />
be in a good quality. Next to the LGU building two schools were observed (a primary and a highschool).<br />
The interview with the mayor of the commune, Leke Bibaj, was facilitated by Dritan Pistoli from ADF, who<br />
translated from Albanian into English. As only the main content was translated, many details got lost.<br />
Sometimes Dritan Pistoli had to discuss even a long time with Leke Bibaj to clarify the given information. It<br />
seemed that expressions were not used in a clear way and that many misunderstandings occurred. Missing<br />
knowledge about technology was another problem. As an example, the mayor insisted on the term “septic<br />
tank”, even he explained that the villagers have only pits that are lined with bricks what is not a septic tank.<br />
Additionally, it was hard to get the requested information, as the mayor talked about the topic in the way he<br />
wanted, what was quite unstructured. Questions had to be repeated several times to get an answer that<br />
C.18