-Prime Minister Edi Rama’s interaction with the public via social networking site Facebook:

 

Hello everyone!

I don’t know whether you too are now listening to the chants thrown by participants in a protest already taking place down here. I hear chants like “Down with communism!”, “Rama go!”, insults being thrown over the loudspeaker by individuals who pretend to be speaking on behalf of people. I frankly don’t mind all these as communism collapsed more than 30 years ago and there is no chance for a regime to be reinstated ever again.

I am used to hearing “Rama go!” chants over the years now, always issued by those who use abusive language on behalf of people, but it is always the people who ultimately decide about this, and people spoke up just a few days ago saying “Rama stay” in five out of six municipalities, whereas when they call me “a thief” I just see in each and every one of them a thief who throws insults, because Kant has taught me that “he who accuses you of having done wrong without offering any evidence he either intends or has already done what he accuses you of.”

Never throughout my life have I ever bent over to put my hand in someone else’s pocket and since I was a kid I have been told that money is worthless on the day of wrath. However, as I said, I don’t mind either the screams or insults, curses or ridicule in such situations. The basic problem is unification; unification behind the truth and true facts!

I have been very carefully following your reactions and comments via this social networking site since the press conference two days ago, when we provided facts and figures and the truth about the deepening energy crisis and our measures designed to prevent an increase in electricity price.

With the oil prices soaring, the natural wave of concern is rising too. What matters most is the unification in face of such situations. Some ridiculed and mocked me about this, wondering “what unification I mean?” “What to unite for as you comfortably sit in office, while we bear all the brunt?” This unification talk is mockery.”

This is not the case at all!

First of all, if I were to stay inside my comfort zone I wouldn’t have been serving in this position, where I am the last person in Albania to calmly wait for the price increase and other problems that ensue or that the revenue collections won’t increase and so on and so forth, but it is probably necessary for me to better explain what I do mean by unification around facts and the truth.

We may differ in our opinions we may have on how to tackle this or that, but we can’t be divided when it comes to the facts. We can’t have alternative facts, like the problems concerning electricity and oil as some claim that Albania has sufficient power and oil as the country is rich in both, but the government is to be blamed for selling it abroad.

But, if we were to start off with a totally wrong premise we would then jump to totally wrong conclusions. We do not generate adequate electricity to meet domestic demand, even during the peak of power generation during a rainy season, let alone during a season with scarce rainfall, like this third consecutive year. This goes for the oil production too as that Albania produces crude oil grade, highly viscous and with high sulphur content mainly and it is exported mainly for its industrial by-products, including bitumen. Albania doesn’t extract oil for diesel or gasoline. If it was to be used at the pumps at filling stations, it would send all cars for scrap within a week.

Some insist upon an alternative fact, which is absolutely not true. They claim: “Albania is rich in sufficient power and oil sources, but politicians are to be blamed for selling both electricity and oil abroad. Such logic explains everything about stealing and this is the logic of thieves. He who explains everything through stealing, without wishing to listen, read, understand or be informed, he is simply a potential thief, because one cannot accuse anyone of being a thief without offering any evidence and moreover by offering totally made up facts and not real ones.

We export electricity during the rainy season and we sell it cheap, because we lack storage capacities. We have to either sell it cheap or discharge the water. We sell electricity during winter when price is low and we are forced to make expensive electricity purchases during the summer and dry season, when the rain is scarce and the water level at the hydropower dams is very low under the technical level.  This is the reason we are building the Skavica hydropower plant to store excessive water and use it during the dry season. A number of other energy projects are already underway, yet their completion will take some time.

We can’t differ when it comes to facts. Differing on facts would confuse us and lead us into a raging and dividing fight. We can’t differ on facts when we talk about the market energy prices. We can in no way differ on facts as they are no secret and not difficult to establish facts and the fact is that as we speak about the electricity prices, one megawatt hour of electricity costs 552 euros from 52 euros a year ago. We are committed to protect the household consumers and this is something I have affirmed since I announced that a crisis was looming. The fact is that the crisis actually escalated. We have pledged to keep the electricity price unchanged even though the war had its impact on the electricity price too and it further deepened the energy crisis.