Diella, formerly a virtual assistant on the government website, will handle public procurement, Prime Minister Edi Rama has said
Albania will soon be the first country to have an AI chatbot as a virtual minister, in an effort to clamp down on corruption by turning to an unbribable digital official.
The Balkan nation ranked 80th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for last year.
Diella, meaning ‘sun’ in Albanian, will be responsible for all public procurement in Albania moving forward, Prime Minister Edi Rama said at a party assembly in Tirana on Thursday.
The bot initially launched earlier in the year on the e-Albania platform as an AI virtual assistant that helped citizens with government services. Its avatar appears as a young brunette woman dressed in traditional Albanian garb.
“Diella is the first cabinet member who isn’t physically present but is virtually created by AI,” Rama said.
“The public procurement must be transformed, which we need to gradually transfer to AI, making Albania a country where public tenders are 100% free from corruption,” he added.
The awarding of public sector contracts in the Balkan country has long been a source of graft scandals, complicating Albania’s EU bid since it was officially granted candidate status in 2014.
In recent months, the country was rocked by a major corruption scandal centered around waste management. In April, seven former officials were convicted on abuse of power charges.
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The European Commission regularly highlights the problem of corruption in the Balkan state as part of its rule of law reports.
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