“The 4.2 million euro investment for Kanye West’s concert is shameful” / Activist: Schools and hospitals are in a scandalous condition, SPAK should respond

Activist Luçiana Kokaj has called unacceptable the decision by Edi Rama’s government to allocate 4 million euros for the concert of well-known rapper Kanye West. In an interview with News24, she said that while citizens are facing a lack of healthcare services and, according to her, infrastructure in schools and hospitals is in a scandalous condition, the government has chosen to spend millions of euros from the reserve fund to organize a concert.

According to Kokaj, this money should have been directed toward citizens’ most urgent needs. She also called for the issue to be investigated by SPAK.

“The state investing in the concert of a private individual is shameful. They come out and denounce Albanians who leave bad reviews, while they themselves invest in a private business. Meanwhile, you have Albanians who do not receive medical assistance, who need treatment abroad, and the state does not make those treatments possible for them. The state apparently has money to invest in Kanye West, but does not have money to send Albanians for treatment when it does not provide that treatment itself. There are schools and hospitals in a scandalous condition.

When the state’s reserves are touched for a concert, it seems banal to me, while when the earthquake happened to us, we did not have enough in reserves, so we opened a GoFundMe and asked for money across Europe.

Meanwhile, now we have money in the reserve fund. I believe the justice institutions will do their job.

SPAK should act, it should also look into the ‘Albanian Files,’ the permits that were granted and how the agreements were made. The talks were on the table long before the change to law 21/24. That law was changed to favor Rama’s friends, whom SPAK should investigate,” she said.