This document summarizes information from an Albanian transparency organization's website about their work monitoring government spending, political donations, and concessions. It discusses databases tracking treasury transactions, electoral spending, and company concessions. It also describes a mobile app called "Za'Lart" that crowdsources reports of electoral irregularities to increase accountability in Albania's local elections.

1. MONEY,
GOVERNMENT
AND
POLITICS

2. It’s purpose is to publish data that truly address the issues of abuse, corruption or conflict of
interest of Albanian governance and politics.
With the increasing availability of information, this project aim at enhancing transparency,
accountability and strengthen good governance, thereby guaranteeing the tangibility of the
dividend of the democracy.
This platform will publish electoral spending data including electoral donations and donors for
the electoral campaign of 21st June 2015.

4. Treasury Transaction
The government of Albania runs a spending system, which is stored in the Central Treasury office (
By analyzing the records of this digitized version of the treasury,
it is possible to monitor and understand:
1. How public administration spends the money
2. Where did the funds go
3. How much is paid for different services/ cases.
4. How much money did a specific company receive from a specific institution
in a period of time?
5. How much money each institute spent?
6. How much money was spent in short period of times?

6. Concessionary Register
Companies have gained the right to use public assets or services.
Through our database and the investigative work of the Open Data Albania team, we
have collected data not only about their capital, gross profit, shareholders, but also about
the concessionary costs paid in the last three years, royalties, and concessionary objects.
The data about these companies are also accompanied by a copy of the official version of
their financial tables (annual accounts), as well as by a copy of the Law or By-Law that
ratifies the concessionary agreements

8. Money&Power
One-stop integrated data sources, which demystify Assets and wealth of the
politicians and high-level judges in the country,
Sources of wealth
Disclosure of the information about the concessionary agreements
Respective companies, which are given the right to use public assets.

14. On June 21st, 2015 Albania will hold local government elections.
Given the complexity expected form this elections because of new territorial organization,
AIS intends to introduce in the Spending Data platform a new one-stop integrated data
source together with apps with visual tools, which indicate clearly to the public the
donations and donors for each electoral subject, as well as their expenditure and the total
revenues made available for the campaign. These are expenditures declared by the
political parties during their campaigns.
Similar projects of field investigation for non-declared expenses have been previously
applied through civil society projects. However, there has been a deficiency in the
publication and visualization of the officially declared assets, which are important
instruments that enable the verification of cases of conflicts of interest and any other
interest lobbied for during campaigns. Furthermore, transparency of data is particularly
important because some of the electoral expenditure in Albania is covered by taxpayers’
money.

15. Media Impact

20. Za´Lart 2015, is a project where the citizens are invited to
denounce (report and alert) on an open source platform
(website & mobile applications), about problems they
encounter during electoral campaigns and electoral day.
The facts (audio, photo and video), irregularities and
information collected, will provide a clear overview of the
electoral process and encourage the interested bodies (civic
stakeholders and institutions) to undertake appropriate
administrative and politic measures.
The electoral process of 21st of June 2015 will elect mayors and municipality council
members responsible for local governance 2015 - 2019.

21. ICT for fair election

22. Given the incidents and infractions
(vote buying, family vote, irregularities in electoral list,
the abuse of administrative power, violence during the
voting process etc.)
during the electoral process in the abovementioned
countries, amongst other Albania, there is a need for
citizens to act, monitor, and address from all over the
country.

23. Za´Lart Project Objectives:
 Working as an online monitoring platform (Web &
Applications) from citizens;
 Real-time receiving and addressing alerts/information
on election problems;
 Raising citizens´ voice and increasing civic role in
electoral process through real-time monitoring;
 Real-time monitoring that increases objective and
professional response;
 Using ICT to make elections account in the country;
 Increasing public pressure on responsible institutions
for a regular and fair electoral process.

25. Everyone alerting irregularities can report them by clicking the category
Report.
In addition, the citizen can manually add the location where the
problem/incident is happening when using Web or the location is automatically
added if using the mobile phone.
By selecting the right category, the citizen can submit the report illustrated with
photos and/or videos which witness first-hand.
However, the citizen can choose whether to be anonymous or not in this report.

26. As a first step, the problems and irregularities are controlled/censured for any
discriminatory language or images which will contribute to fair and ethical
public information.
At this stage, all the alerts are online, however being marked as unverified.
It is the Ad-hoc editorial room which verifies the objectivity of the alerts.
When the reports are identified as true they are marked verified.

27. Za´Lart is aiming at empowering and providing a voice to Albanian citizens.
By uniting these voices (reports/alerts), under one platform it is easier to make citizens’ voices
heard from the very first beginning of the electoral campaign.
The platform is a valuable tool for raising civic voice and increasing civic participation.
Za´Lart can serve as an alternative media source and thereby helping to establish
strong roots of democracy in the country.
The difference we make is civic engagement.

28. What happens in elections?

29. The electoral staffs in Albania ask public administration employees to promise
that they will secure 50 votes for the candidate of a political party for Mayor.
Municipality of BERAT and SARANDA

30. Some electoral offices in Albania
are offering coupons worth
of 40 USD to be used for
buying clothes from a shop owned
by one of the candidates for Mayor.
The coupons carry the commercial
stamp of the company and
the logo of the respective
political party.
Municipality of SHKODRA

31. Only in Albania may an electoral meeting take place in a national Port like the one in
Saranda, interrupting the port activity and embarkations for the candidate to speak
undisturbed by their noise

32. The special Police forces
in a municipality in the country
create an atmosphere
of tension
and an abnormal situation
after each electoral meeting.
Police in this area
have even conducted
home searches
without a court warrant,
and without any
‘caught in the act’
circumstances involved.

33. The hospital staff in Berat leaves its
patients unattended for two hours in
response to an order to appear at an
electoral rally.

34. Why should such events be reported?
Gifts and money are often given so openly that the citizens think that such situations
are normal. By urging citizens to report, we ask them to take a stand towards ‘vote
buying’.
By publishing what citizens report, the public institutions feel under pressure to intervene
and fix the situation.
The certified, international and domestic, observers receive signals in real time and go to
the indicated places to check.
Za’Lart works in the framework of the Electoral Situation Room, an initiative to
coordinate work among civil society organizations working for fair elections, an
initiative taken for the first time this year.

35. Creating the Map indicating the most problematic areas.

36. Find us :
http://ais.al/
open.data.al
http://www.spending.data.al/
http://www.zalart.al/
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/AlbanianInstituteOfScience?fref=ts
Twitter : @AIScience

37. Thank You