Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at today’s parliamentary session:

 

There are people who don’t know things, and there are politicians who don’t want them to know things because they want people not to be illuminated so that they can use them for their ambitions.

Actually, I want to talk about an important law we have here today, on social care, and I do not want to take the time of anyone, much less to waste mine on what was discussed earlier, because it is a debate between those telling stories and those talking with expertise. You can tell as much as you want the story of concessions in the healthcare. Nobody will believe you, for the truth is what citizens experience, and it’s very simple. Citizens receive much better quality service and don’t pay a penny from their pockets. We have done and will continue to do public-private partnerships for all the services. And we won’t waste our time to persuade those who want Albanians to be unilluminated with regard to this issue. Now let’s go to the central topic according to me, and I don’t speak according to what we say, but according to what the World Bank, a super specialized international institution and a reference point for all those who want to know the condition of an economy, says about the Albanian economy.

Albania’s economy has continued to expand in 2016, supported by strong private investments and the recovery of household consumption. The WB says this. The accelerated growth by 3% in the first quarter of 2016, continued with a 3.2% increase in the second quarter. Fiscal results continued on the right track in 2016, leading to a decline in public debt for the first time since the global crisis. The World Bank says this. The budget deficit is expected to reach 2.5% of gross national product in 2016, from 4.8% it was in 2014, and from 5.2% it was in 2013.

If you want to talk about the economy, economy is based on statistically verifiable facts, not on the winking to the poor, and thanking God for their existence so that you can lie to them. But you’ll see in June 2017, how much you are able to fool them.

The World Bank continues – as a result, public debt is expected to decline in line with the government’s program for its steady decline. In the context of accelerated economic growth – that’s how the WB calls it, accelerated economic growth, and it cannot be called differently – we took economy between 0 and 1%, and today we are towards 3.3 up to 3.5% at the end of this year.

The jesters of progress who think the economy can grow by writing stories, can continue to tell stories. But economy grows precisely by doing the reforms that we are doing, which show not according to us, but according to the WB, that the labour market has continued to improve steadily, recording an employment rate in the first quarter of 2016 by 2.7 % higher than the same period a year ago. The employment rate in the age group 15-64 years increased by 54.8% in the first quarter of 2016, and growth continued in the second quarter to 55.3%. But the figures do not apply to those who say “we read the figures according to the seat where we sit.” If we sit on the minister’s seat, figures are higher. If we sit on a seat we don’t like, figures are lower. And if we sit on the seat of despair, as someone here today on my right side, figures are totally worthless.

According to the World Bank, better outcomes in employment are shown by the indicators of decreased unemployment and of a higher percentage of participation in the labour force. And in fact, the second quarter of 2016 recorded 15.5% from 18.2%, which was the unemployment actually measured. Because what we asked since the first day was to separate the Institute of Statistics from the table where my predecessor used to hand calculate the double-digit increases with his own writing, and then the Institute of Statistics would read them. From a real estimation of unemployment statistics, we found 18.2%. Today, in the second quarter we are at 15.5%. If this looks like an equation to the jesters of progress, hermetic mathematics, this is totally understandable. But the fact is that unemployment – according to the World Bank, not according to us – has been reduced.

And I’m very pleased to see here Ms Tabaku, for she wasn’t there last time when the report on the level of corruption came out – I know she follows with priority the international reports – and I am sure that Ms Tabaku will be able to deny this report of the WB neither. Economic growth combined with the positive developments in the labour market is estimated to have reduced poverty and promoted inclusion. Moderate poverty is estimated to have declined to 46% in 2015.

Now, these were facts of the World Bank, while in terms of the social welfare program, three major reforms have been carried out. The welfare reform, the reform of the system to assess disability – both reforms done in close cooperation with the World Bank – and the reform of social services. The information management system provided for all three reforms transparency, avoided abuse with the use of public funds, a fairer targeting of poor families, and increased efficiency and equity of the economic aid scheme.

Now I understand very well that everything I said and everything I will say are relative, and I’m aware that all of the jesters who do politics with disaster, with poverty and with the desperation of the people, that what we have done is not a reason to be tell people that it is enough because it is not, but that economic aid was 15 thousand to 30 thousand when we took government, and today it is 45 thousand to 80 thousand ALL, and that is fact. Definitely 45 thousand to 80 thousand is not a lot, so that we can telling people that we’ve met their need for economic assistance, but it is quite a lot more significant amount than the amount they received when the country was ruled by those who today come here and ask for account on evident figures of a constant progress evident on the path of reforms, which still have many results to deliver.

I know that an additional 25% to the monthly salary for persons with disabilities is not enough, and I am the first to have never said to either those receiving economic assistance or to the disabled persons that we accomplished our duty towards them, because the economic aid you are receiving is two of three times higher than it used to be, and because there you have the payment of disability 25% higher than it was, but an additional 25% is an additional 25%, and this is a fact.

It is a fact also that the pension fund for the implementation of the historic pension reform has increased by $ 12 million, as it is a fact that all those who are on this side over here [the opposition], have told people for over for 20 years that it doesn’t matter how much they worked, it does not matter how much they contributed to social security, there’s this limit of 240 thousand ALL (old currency), and this is what they’ll have until they die although they god their nose to the grindstone. You allocated only a special pension for people with very special merits, which is a dropper for Pontius Pilate to wash his hands.

Actually, following our reform that removed the cap for pensions, these increased for everybody. Meanwhile 5500 people in Albania, grandfathers and grandmothers, received zero pension. Not 40 thousand ALL, not 50 thousand ALL, not 240 ALL, but zero. Today, they receive a social pension. It is the lowest pension in Albania, 67 thousand ALL. It’s very little money, but it’s much more than the fake examples brought here by the jesters of progress who wink at the poor, for apparently the day has come for them to have their “books”.

The retirement age for miners has been lowered. How many times over the years have the miners protested? How many times have they been worn out before the prime ministry? How many hunger strikes have they attended while asking just what was promised to them in over 20 years, that they retirement age would be lowered from 60 to 55? Why didn’t you do that? With what courage do you come here and call to account? While you call to account, we did what you told. Today miners retire at 55, and 2280 former miners who until two years ago received only 8000 ALL, today they receive a full pension, which is twice that amount. There are not 2 million people, but there are 2280 people whom you left adrift with 80 thousand ALL [old currency], and who receive today twice that amount. The rest is beneficiary of a pension that amounts up to 210 thousand ALL.

All of you, included everything of yours, your portals, your newspapers, your trumpets, your arrows, left a pension of 240 thousand ALL as a life sentence for all those who retired. Following our reform, the maximum retirement pension has increased today to 370 thousand ALL, for those who retire after the reform. But today, those who want to have a pension higher than 370 thousand ALL, will have to contribute more for their pension to the social insurance. People can decide for their own pension, and the government cannot tell them “hang yourself”, for no matter how much you contribute, the limit is 240 thousand ALL. And we’re not taking stock here of a 30-year governance, but of a 3-year governance. Three years after 25 years of constant devastation.

What about the pensions of the war veterans? Haven’t they increased 15.6% for 6600 veterans? Who increased them? Was it you or the inextinguishable stars of your politics? We increased them, 15.6%! For you, the war veterans are secret service agents, and actually I’m not asking you why you didn’t increase pension for the war veterans, but what was your problem with the victims of political prosecution? How come that in 8 years of your government, you allowed people who were released from prison die at 80 and some years of age without receiving a penny from the compensation instalment, while you allocated to yourselves some of those instalments on behalf of the predecessors of the victims of political prosecution? Therefore, when you talk about war veterans as secret service agents, you do but prove what I’ve always said, that you are degraded members of the front, not the original ones. You are caricatures of Shefqet Musaraji. All of you. I don’t see here the one who used to say “my father was a partisan, when he was 10 years old”.  Shall I tell you one more thing about social welfare? In 2014, the number of people contributing to the social security scheme grew by 93 thousand compared to 2013. And this means that an additional 93 thousand of contributors is 93 thousand people whom you left adrift and erased from the books.

So, to conclude here in terms of social protection, I have nothing to say to those who don’t want to listen, and who come here in this parliament to keep people in the darkness of their despair, by preventing them from lighting up the light of information. But the truth is that, following the energy reform, this government pays 6480 ALL for all those who receive economic aid, for whom you established apparently a protective band, which actually was transformed into a haven for energy thieves owning 2 or 3-storied villas. We give 16 million dollars for all those who deserved the protective band, and who could be compelled to pay more in terms of energy after the removal of the protective band. So, its removal hasn’t affected them because what we’ve done is we have compensated precisely the gap between the protective band and the free space of the sector.

Another news I have is that we’ll discuss soon in parliament the status of oilman, in order to support another category despised by you to the point that it was deprived from any dignity, just like you did with the whole of Albania. You deprived totally Albania from its dignity. You made of Albania a fool in the region, a fool in Europe, and a fool in the years of the whole world. You left oil, the greatest national asset, in the hands of the one whom Sali used to call Nasreddin. Ridvan knows this very well, for Nasreddin has given him a very hard time. Ridvan made a great effort to prevent the fence from shattering, but Nasreddin and his guys succeeded in shattering the fence. I’m trying to be fair and acknowledge your merits. The whole Albania knows about your efforts to prevent the fence from shattering, but it eventually was totally shattered and the whole sector destroyed, and as you know, the refineries – over which you keep crying today together with Sali – were abandoned by you along with the oilmen who were transformed in war prisoners. They and their families starved for months, even for over a year. Whereas we, in addition to returning them their job, will fully restore their dignity. Whatever it takes. We will discuss soon in parliament the status of oilman, and we will acknowledge the dignity of all those thousand people to whom the government is not able to grant today what they deserve.

To you who keep telling stories to the poor people you meet, and talk about the minimum threshold for living, I’m telling that we kept our promise also to the former military people. Go and ask them. 13 million dollars of obligations left by you have been written off for 5425 former military people. And beyond all this, in 8 years you allocated from the state budget only 124 million dollars for salaries and pensions. Let’s not calculate with 1001 different ways that make figures look differently to different people. The fact is that in 8 years you allocated 124 million dollars form the state budget for salaries and pensions.

Whereas we, in addition to allocating with the 2017 state budget 100 million dollars following the removal of the flat tax which you want to restore – and by the way, there’s a beautiful saying that goes “the fool’s problem is not that he doesn’t change attitude, but that he doesn’t change his argument either”, – just form that 140 million dollars were taken from the state budget and granted to the state employees, to the budget of their households amounting to 240 million. And if we consider the effects of the removal of flat tax in the private sector, there is an additional of 300 million. So, a total of 540 million in 4 years which we have taken from the state budget to support the budget of households.

Therefore, the recovery of family consumption is progressing, as all international financial institutions have underlined. We’re not expecting from you to tell us this. 540 million with 124 million in 8 years. Now calculate in percentage the difference between 540 and 124, and you’ll have your result in the coming elections.