It is one of the classic cases of using and uniting the Democratic Party with the public administration when it was in power. Less than a year after graduating from political science, singer Greta Koçi started her career in public administration. And not by climbing the ladder based on competition and experience, but from the first day of work as director of the Directorate of Agreements in the General Directorate of Development and Integration Policies in the Ministry of Interior. Today we bring for the first time the appointment contract dated April 9, 2013, two months before the loss of the DP in the parliamentary elections and then his departure from power.
The document was signed by Isuf Çelaj, who at the time was the Secretary General of the Ministry of Interior. Çelaj was elected MP under the banner of the Democratic Party in the parliamentary elections of April 25, 2021 and thus will be part of the new Parliament that will be constituted in September.
The Minister of Interior was Flamur Noka, appointed by Sali Berisha in June 2012 to replace Bujar Nishani, who was elected President. In the contract signed to start working Greta Koçi as director in the Ministry of Interior, the date of birth of the singer is missing. Meanwhile, the start date of the work is marked four days before the date when the contract was signed. The employment document stipulates 6 conditions that the singer must meet. One of the conditions is to respect the working schedule, perhaps the most difficult to meet by Greta Koçi, who had many artistic and political commitments.
In addition to concerts and the publication of songs, Greta Koçi was also vice-president of the Youth Forum of the Democratic Party, elected since October 2011. After the assassinations of January 21, 2011, when the great international isolation began, Sali Berisha tried to change the image, offering at the party also singers. Along with Greta Koçi, he also offered Çiljeta Xhilaga, who started appearing more and more singing in PD rallies. After the departure of the PD from power and the leadership of the party by Lulzim Basha, Koçi and Xhilaga left, as did many other characters.
But how did Greta Koçi’s career in the Ministry of Interior continue? There is no information on how the singer left the post of director or whether she appeared at work one day! But it is already known that the Democratic Party, immediately after losing power, began to worry about the fate of its people in public administration. In 2014, the DP demanded the establishment of an investigative commission for dismissals in the administration. The commission was set up in January 2015, but was soon abandoned by DP members.
On the eve of the elections of April 25, 2021, the chairman of the Democratic Party, Lulzim Basha, published his book entitled ‘My Mission’. Among other things, Basha recounted the three most difficult moments during the leadership of the Democratic Party. And one of the moments has to do with the fate of the PD people who had catapulted into the administration.
Basha writes that “The first is marked by the first act made by the opposition government: the suspension of the Civil Service Law, which blew up the law adopted by 84 votes in the last session of the 2013 parliament, as a condition for the EU to advance further in the process of integration of Albania. This shocked me. I experienced it as a personal responsibility that thousands of people, public administration employees, would suffer “persecution” in flagrant opposition to the law approved by consensus, but changed treacherously. They were being fired, their family life would change, their professional investment in the administration would be wasted, and they would be replaced by party militants.
I experienced that night as if I were one of those Albanian families that would suffer that fate. When some of the dismissed went on hunger strike next to the Prime Minister, the situation became even more critical. These people had been led to the point of sacrificing their lives and a difficult opposition awaited me! After that, the Prime Minister cynically said in parliament his infamous expression: “You have not seen anything yet!”. “Indeed, everything went from bad, if not worse, and this treacherous act would be only the first assassination attempt against our democracy and its laws, against the trust of our international partners” ./ shqiptarja.com
Employment document of Greta Koçi
Employment document of Greta Koçi
Sali Berisha and Greta Koçi