Albania Appoints Diella First AI-Powered Minister to Tackle Corruption 

Albania Appoints Diella First AI-Powered Minister to Tackle Corruption 

What is “Diella” AI minister? 

In a groundbreaking move, Albania has introduced this is an artificial intelligence system—as its AI minister Albania, taking the formal post of Minister for Public Procurement. Diella, whose name means “Sun” in Albanian, is not a physical person but a virtual entity officially appointed by Prime Minister Edi Rama and backed by the National Agency for Information Society (AKSHI).  

Role: Public tender transparency 

As Diella public procurement minister, It’s job is to oversee, evaluate, and award public tenders—government contracts with private companies—aimed at eliminating human bias, bribery, or influence. The government claims Diella will make public tenders “100 % free of corruption”, ensuring full transparency in how tenders are processed and contracts are awarded.  

How Diella was used before 

Before being elevated to ministerial status, Diella served as a virtual assistant on the e-Albania platform, launched in January 2025. In that role, it helped citizens navigate public services—guiding them through paperwork, issuing digitally stamped documents, responding via voice and avatar, and processing user requests online. By September, Diella had handled over 36,600 documents and delivered nearly 1,000 services.  

Corruption issues in procurement 

Public procurement in Albania has long been cited as a weak point in governance. Allegations include favoritism, lack of transparency, conflicts of interest, and political interference in deciding which contractors win government contracts. These issues have eroded public trust and posed obstacles for Albania’s ambitions to join the European Union, which demands rigorous standards of transparency and rule of law.  

Promises vs concerns of oversight 

While the promise of AI minister Albania is bold, many questions remain: 

  • Oversight & accountability: Who audits Diella’s decisions? What legal recourse exists if Diella errs or its decisions are challenged? The government has not yet clearly disclosed the oversight mechanisms.  
  • Manipulation risk: Even AI systems depend on data, code, and how they are trained. If those are biased—or manipulated—Diella could inherit human-weaknesses in new forms.  
  • Legal & constitutional status: Some political opposing voices (like Albania’s Democratic Party) argue that making an AI system a minister may conflict with constitutional norms, since ministers are typically human and accountable under law.  
  • Transparency of algorithm: For Diella public procurement to work as promised, its decision-making algorithm, data sources, criteria for evaluating tenders must be transparent and auditable. Citizens and civil society will likely demand that clarity. 

Significance for global governance 

This appointment places Albania at the forefront of experimenting with AI in governance. Key implications include: 

  • If successful, Diella public procurement could become a model for how AI can help reduce corruption in procurement, a problem many countries face. 
  • It may push other nations to consider AI systems not just as advisory tools, but active participants in administrative decision-making, especially in transparency-critical functions. 
  • EU membership prospects for Albania might strengthen, given that tackling corruption is a core criterion in accession talks.  
  • Raises global debates around legal-frameworks for AI, ethics in algorithmic decision making, accountability, and how much trust societies can place in automated systems in public administration. 

Albania’s Diella marks a historic first: a government trusting artificial intelligence to take on one of its toughest jobs. Whether Diella public procurement becomes a benchmark or a cautionary tale will depend on transparency, oversight and how faithfully it can deliver on the promise of reducing corruption. Notifire will keep following developments as this experiment unfolds. 

Stay tuned with Notifire for more updates.

sources: Adda247

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