Remarks at the MCC Workshop with Media Representatives

Remarks of Bruce Kay, USAID Threshold Program Manager
MCC Informational Workshop for Media
April 22, 2009, 11:00 a.m.  Tirana International

Thank you Delina. Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen. As Albanian media have already reported, the Millennium Challenge Account Threshold Program is now into its second and final stage. 

This partnership between Albania and the US, which began its first stage in 2006 with the goal of reducing inefficiencies and corruption in public administration, achieved notable successes.

Albania streamlined business registration under the National Registration Center, allowing tens of thousands of entrepreneurs to launch tax-registered businesses in one day.

Albania reduced personal contacts and bribery opportunities in revenue collection with innovations like e-filing.

Albania opened government purchasing to more competition through e-procurement and cut the costs of goods and services to government by 15%. Albania also established independent procurement oversight, under the watchful eye of the Procurement Advocate. 

These successes helped Albania qualify for a Stage 2 Threshold Program, which began in January 2009 and will end in February 2011.  Stage 2 builds on Stage one.  But its goals are even bolder.   

It will afford Albanians a means to adjudicate disputes with government through modern administrative courts.

It will reorganize Albania’s outmoded tax bureaucracy and continue to reduce corruption in revenue collection. 

It will simplify business licensing using the one stop shop concept, cutting out bribery opportunities.

It will create a National Planning Register to help reduce corruption in the building permit process. 

It will create opportunities for private sector groups to monitor government reforms and unveil their failings and successes.

My colleague, Rick Wolfe of Chemonics, will explain these components of Stage 2 to you in greater detail later.  Also in stage two, prosecutors will create joint investigative units in six districts outside Tirana.  This part of the program will be implemented by the US Department of Justice OPDAT Program. My colleague, Cindy Eldridge of OPDAT will explain this component in more detail later.

Our goals for Stage 2 are more ambitious.  But the stakes for Albania are also higher.

The stakes are higher because Albania is now a full NATO member. NATO expects its members to deliver better governance under a stronger rule of law that deters and punishes corruption. 

The stakes are higher because Albania has one final chance to qualify for an MCC Compact.  If Albania falters in its reform attempts over the next two years, future MCC aid to Albania is unlikely.

The stakes are higher because the Threshold Program itself is more complex, involving a commitment from a wide contingent of Albanian society, a commitment that transcends the June elections.

It is a commitment that involves Government, which has promised to carry out major reforms in a short period of time; that involves Parliament, which ratified the bilateral agreement which underpins the Threshold Program and thereby committed itself to forging the political consensus needed to pass key laws.

It is a commitment that involves the Judiciary as partners in the creation of administrative courts; that involves Prosecutors and Police in carrying out investigations of criminal activity.  It is a commitment that requires engagement by nongovernmental organizations to monitor reform, and hold government accountable.  

Media will also play a role as the conduit about information on these reforms to the public.  It may not be a direct role, but it certainly can be a constructive and critical one.  The American novelist Mark Twain once wrote that “the job of the journalist is to print the truth and raise Hell.” 

The press is not a mouthpiece for government, paid to advertise its successes myopically and without skepticism.  Nor is it paid to serve as an attack dog at the command of partisan interests. 

No, the job of the media here and everywhere is to probe, investigate, and inform the public in a responsible way and dispassionate way.

The Albanian media can play such a role throughout the Threshold Program and I expect it will. News about this project may not always be good.  But it should be accurate.  Accurate news always serves the greater good of keeping the public informed and helping implementers of this program -- not only Albanian institutions, but both USAID and the US Department of Justice-- to do a better job. 

We hope that media will hold these reforms under a microscope in fact because we are confident the Stage 2 Program will achieve results every bit as impressive as those of Stage 1 and that the Program and its results will withstand any fair scrutiny by the media. 

Thank you.