Monitoring the borders, Xhaçka: The radars are functioning; Slanderous accusations by opposition

Monitoring the borders, Xhaçka: The radars are functioning; Slanderous

The Minister of Defence, Olta Xhaçka, was called at the meeting of the National Security Commission, to discuss the defense budget. Following the discussions, the Minister debated with democratic MPs. Minister Xhaçka refuted the accusations from the Democratic Party that the radars which monitor Albanian borders have not been functioning in order to support drug trafficking. The Minister declared that the radars monitoring the aerial and marine spaces have been working effectively the whole time. 

Xhaçka also added that a shutdown of the radars is impossible, due to the fact that the monitoring centre is assisted by NATO. "The integrated system for the monitoring of marine spaces is fully functional and operational. "The people who manage the system monitor the spaces 24 hours, 7 days a week. 

"The operational centre is composed of representatives from 7 different institutions. "While something may be able to escape one of them, it is not possible to escape the other six. "If there was such a situation, whoever has concrete information that the job was not done accordingly must denunciate the issue immediately to the relevant institutions" - declared the Minister of Defence. 

However, according to the Vice Chairman of the Security Commission and Democratic MP, Flamur Noka, NATO only monitors the aerial spaces over 3 000 meters. Managing the other space is the duty of the Albanian Army. Regarding the accusations that warehouses of the Military are utilized by drug cultivators, the Minister said that this is an attempt to disparage the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence. 

As far as the budget is concerned, the Minister of Defence said that it is anticipated for the military to reach a figure of 2% of the domestic output by 2024.

EMISIONET