Rama addresses inspectors: No business inspections without prior notice! No sword of blackmail hanging over entrepreneurs’ heads

This Wednesday, Prime Minister Edi Rama declared that businesses should not be fined and that inspections should not be carried out without prior notice.

The head of government made the statement following a meeting with inspectors, which was also attended by Minister of Economy and Innovation Delina Ibrahimaj and Inspector General Dashnor Sula.

Rama stressed the need for a new approach to the inspection process, based on transparency, fairness and support for entrepreneurship.

The prime minister said that the aim is not to catch businesses making mistakes, but to help them improve their compliance with the law.

“Inspection procedures must pass the test of ‘Besa.’ First, there must no longer be any inspections without prior notice. The inspector does not come to the business’s door as if it were a crime scene, but as the state, which informs you, supervises you and helps you correct your mistakes.

Our aim is not to catch businesses making mistakes, but to help them improve their compliance with the law and meet standards that are in our common interest. And second, a fine imposed on a business is the last resort, not the first, and never a ‘sword’ of blackmail hanging over an entrepreneur’s head, to find another way to avoid the fine afterward. Whoever issues a fine before offering a kind word is not protecting the state, but shaming it.

Third, anyone who is subjected to an unannounced inspection for a routine check by any inspectorate must immediately report it to the Inspector General. This is not a complaint; it is a right, and this right can be established only by all of us together—the government and the business community,” Rama declared.

Rama also announced another measure concerning inspections, declaring that every inspector who knocks on a taxpayer’s door will be equipped with a smart camera and a uniform.

“Finally, soon every inspector who knocks on behalf of the state on the door of a taxpayer in this republic will be equipped with a smart body camera and dressed in uniform, so that you know who they are and what they represent, and so that they themselves know that every minute of their work is being monitored by the General Inspectorate. The state that enters people’s homes must make them proud of the taxes they pay to that state,” Rama said.