Address of the Prime Minister Edi Rama to the Assembly:
The reason why I took the floor relates to the need to continue confront opposite the Albanians two worlds and two philosophies completely different from each other, associated with access to the private sector as a potential and unquestioned partner to develop the economy and to enhance the quality of services.
I want to start from a fact published yesterday by Transparency International, which puts the country into a much better place than a year ago. Albania has an improvement of 36 places in the Transparency International rating, compared with the moment when the government began its work. Instead of being an opposition, you continue being the old government of this country, and from the 85th position Albania was ranked in 2008, you brought it down to 116th in 2013. You have lowered in a brutal manner, the dignity and image of our country in this category every year.
While today, we have data form a totally independent international source, regarding the fact that reforms have started to give results also in terms of the fight against corruption. For us this fight has been, is and will remain a struggle for state-building and for building systems that make corruption back off and shrink.
Just a few days ago, the World Bank launched a very similar case of a successful public-private partnership to enhance the quality of public health service. A successful case in Brazil, promoted by the World Bank, which fosters and promotes the success story of public-private partnership. I know that in your view Brazil is less important than Bathore, but by recalling you that it is one of the G20 countries, I invite you to expand your very narrow horizons.
We are committed and will continue vigorously to expand cooperation with the enterprise, in order to increase the quality of services, in a country that does not have the capacity to raise debt, and a government that is unwilling to raise taxes. It is very clear, if we do not increase the debt, but, on the contrary, we have entered a trend reduction in debt, and on the other hand we do not raise taxes, but are rather in a trend of taxes reduction, then the third way to increase investments in order to improve the quality of services, is without the slightest doubt a public-private partnership.
This is not an invention of ours, and Albania is the last country in the region and in Europe for the number of public-private partnerships that having European standards. It is a philosophy and a clear and well-defined policy to build a functioning market economy and a state that delivers quality services, as the goal of our medium-term strategy to give people the state that they have been missing for so many years.
It is inevitable to make some comparisons between the old government and the new government; between the old government, that has undertaken today to increase the production of daily mud, with an aim at tarnishing and undermining every initiative of the government, and the new government, which has developed several public-private partnerships and will develop many others, without the slightest doubt.
In 8 years, from 2005 until 2013, the old government has granted 173 concessions. While today, in the space of two and a half years only 14 contracts have been made. 173 concessions, 161 concessions – on most occasions fatal for the finances, the environment and the public interest – have been given for the construction of hydropower plants. The rest are typical concessions that show how the public interest can be sold to a private, and they are typical of the old government’s mind-set in relation to concessions.
The concession for security liens, an extremely controversial concession in terms of finances and absolutely adverse to the public utility considering the results it has brought.
The concession for the scanning of containers, an extremely burdensome concession for the public interest, for the interest of the enterprise and the budget, and totally unnecessary compared with its enormous cost.
Let me point out that we have denounced this concession and have undertaken to undo it, but the completely irresponsible way and the total misuse of the will of the sovereign of parliament to certify that concession have made practically impossible to undo it. But what we have done is that we have renegotiated with perseverance the concession for the scanning for many months, to facilitate entrepreneurship who was really upset and ready to take a stand to prevent this concession. Imagine just this, a concession, which following a modest investment to install scanners, not in every entry and exit gate Albania, but only in some of them, would require all importers and exporters to pay 39 euros per customs bill. So, not for a truck, but for a customs bill.
We have had talks that have been recorded in the minutes, with the government of Kosovo, the Ministry of Finance of Kosovo, and we have been told clearly and absolutely rightly, that putting in place that concession would be the end of every dream and hope to develop further trade with Kosovo.
We managed to lower the bill from 39 Euros – a direct arbitrary and abusive bill for the business, – to 22 Euros. Just as we took over from the state budget – from which you seek investments in the most abusive way, forgetting that the biggest investment you forced us to do was to repay hundreds of millions of dollars in debt – debts of mismanagement, of corruption, debts of the inability and of your spectacular image of total lack of sense of statehood – we took over to pay every customs bill for the industry. Because Albanian citizens didn’t have to pay the tribute of eight years of your government, and the tribute of your philosophy and policy in relation to concessions and partnership with the private sector.
Let’s continue with the concession for the fiscal stamps. You charged Albanian a 10% even for a tab of aspirin, and wanted them to pay on 10% also the concession for tax stamps. And it was the same story. A concession made again like they are in the least developed countries of Africa, where the government thinks only of how to get rich and to ensure the continuity of enrichment, even after it is no longer in power, by taking hostage the public interest and services.
In fact, we renegotiated again in the concession to fiscal stamps. If the tax of “disease”, medicines and any aspirin was removed since the first day, and today, Albanians are not required when buying an aspirin to pay for the concessionaire chosen by you to whom you offered the most favourable contract, it is because of our philosophy and policy in the relations with private partners.
Let’s not talk for three concession contracts in the Port of Durres. They are not concession contracts, but are invasion of “occupied land” in the strategic port of Albania. This port has become as if it were an “Economic Bosnia”. Concessionaries fighting with each other, concessionaries fighting with the Port Authority, and all those who want to have services delivered by the concessionaries fighting each other. This is how the strategic port of Albania looks today because of your concessions.
Let’s not discuss at all, for there is nothing to discuss about, the scandalous concession for the control of vehicles. Every Albanian having their vehicles checked, not only they don’t see any difference from the time it was managed by the state, but on the contrary, they pay and suffer more. This is reality. An exclusive concession to put hands in the pockets of the people who take there their vehicles for a check, and are required to pay more that the fee they used to pay to the state, in addition to receiving a very bad service, worse than that delivered by the state.
This is your philosophy, this is your policy. You think – and you are so incompetent that even when you want to understand, you cannot understand – that anyone who undertakes to establish a partnership with the private follows your goals. Forget about it!
Let’s just make one comparison, your concessions for hydropower plants with 6 contracts signed by us, so far. We have entered only 6 contracts, and none of those contracts required Albanians to buy energy from the privates at a fixed fee, regardless of the market. Do you understand what you’ve done?
They are still at our expenses, the government has a responsibility, but citizens have the burden because from their taxes we have to pay the bill of those hydropower that you allowed to be built. And not only this, but you put obligations from the state budget to deny any possibility for the decrease in energy prices by increasing production in the country to bring balance across the free market.
So did nothing, the supposedly right wing, to liberalize the energy market. Zero! You did nothing to build with privates a clear relationship where both the investment and the risk are on you. You can sell power wherever you want, but the state is not obliged to buy it from you a fixed price, because my interest is in the public interest and not your interest. When these interests meet, the state has its share and you have yours.
Without taking into account some of these success stories that have turned into anguish and nightmare stories about people who work the land. Hydropower plants made without any study, draining the land, taking all the water so that nobody can work their land any more. Without taking into account the hydropower plants that have destroyed our forests. Here’s another fact, which is a documented figure. We have issued 27 licenses for the exploitation of forests in two years and a half. Do you know how many you have given? Three per day! Two thousand and hundreds of licenses for the exploitation of forests. At least with forests you should have had a fair relationship, for you knew it before us, and after you left it you cut down all the trees.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health has entered only three contracts for public-private partnership. This government may have many flaws. Certainly this government has made mistakes. But this government, among many merits, has the merit to have opposed and put a limit to the mafia of drugs that was suffocating the health system. It is not easy at all. Drugs are today 30% cheaper. No medicine is sold today as it was sold at the time of the old government, more expensive than in the country of origin.
Moreover, the only country in Europe, the only country in the region and certainly in the club of the most backward countries of the world, that couldn’t build in over 20 years any database for public health. No database and no culture of prevention that is the foundation not only of any health system, but of the entire health system which we are committed and we are going to build, with universal coverage where, whether you are poor or rich, whether you can pay or not, everyone receives the service.
Do you know how much was and is the cost of a check-up and tests for a person who doesn’t have insurance? 51 thousand and some hundreds ALL. And do you know how much do the same tests cost if you go to a private health institution? 80 thousand.
Health policies are not simply about defining a budget and see what to do to make it to the next year, as has been done here for many years. Health policies are inextricably linked with the predictability, and predictability comes primarily from the knowing all the issues and statistics on the types of diseases threatening people. If in any country in Europe, tests are made every six months due to a cultural aspect, due to a system that imposes them since the first moment, for you not obtain an insurance provided that you have done the tests, here nothing has been done to plant the seed of this culture.
Nobody has ever thought how much we can save thanks to this database. This has been statistically adopted worldwide. Prevention always makes you save more than double, which is paid as the cost for detecting the disease at the very end. For example, had we prevented years ago the degradation of the leader, today we would have a more fit leader, in terms of the connection between logic and words. These are the costs of a lack of prevention.
They are the only political party in Europe, the only political party in the region, to have turned the political struggle into a witch hunt for anyone they could bump into, and nominally it hits entrepreneurial people. This doesn’t happen in another country, and if it happened, entrepreneurial people would benefit huge amounts as compensation for the damage to their business. These are the only political party in Europe and in the region, which continue to be directed by a Stalinist, and therefore they have the witch hunt in the foreground, and go on slandering, throwing mud and trying to humiliate anyone they bump into. The only thing they don’t have, is that they do not complete the cycle in the prosecutor’s office without a lawyer, and with death sentences and imprisonment.
What it is in reality, the service that the company provides?
The company providing the check-up-in does not do tests, it does not do the work of the Albanian health service. The company that provides the progress of this partnership makes the distribution and supply of materials and pharmaceutical products required for the check-up. For this reason, the competition aimed at identifying a company that had a network of distribution across the country, in order to distribute their material in all health centres on a weekly basis. There is a total of 3 or 4 companies in Albania doing this, and however, in the end it would not a company that is related to health, but a distribution company that distributes the materials, previously bought.
Another very big and scandalous speculation relates to the propaganda that the company will take 120 million. This is another nonsense, and I repeat that we are very confident that by giving Albanians the opportunity to enter this new world of the check-up, that means by having preventative tests, they save significant money in health, in addition to preventing hundreds of deaths due to ignorance. On the other hand, we create the conditions to build health protocols necessary to move towards universal coverage.
How does a state provide a distribution service? By what means? Albanian must know, and those who had a check-up already know, this is why the number of Albanians having check-ups has been increasing. We didn’t expect to have these figures since the beginning. We expected fewer people. Foreign experts, who have advised us in this public-private partnership, told us that in the second and third year the number will grow, and the number is growing systematically, allowing many people who have heart problems, diabetes, to find out as soon as possible and take action before them it is too late. In addition, they don’t have to travel to Tirana along with their family any longer.
Haemodialysis is another partnership with the private business that has discredited you. I’m not surprised actually, but it is inconceivable that you find the courage and impudence to talk about the haemodialysis. 80 euros is the cost of one haemodialysis session in Tirana, in just one centre, according to your fee, and this is how it has been during the years of your government.
There are hundreds and hundreds of people affected by this disease, who have been traveling for years, every week, from Korca, Kukes, Shkodra and Vlora to Tirana to do the haemodialysis. What this partnership does is that first of all it provides the investment to make have this service delivered at the same price, not only in Tirana, but in a number of centres across the country, from north to south. This way, people are spared the suffering, in addition to saving money, time and reduce the stress of having to travel to do the haemodialysis.
The company you are talking about runs a cafeteria in Berat. It has a name. It is an Albanian company, a representative of a major Japanese company, “Nipro”, which produces medical equipment and materials. Its turnover is declared in the accounts of the Albanian state. Why don’t you look at the company’s turnover, but go after the fact that the owner of a company can also run a cafeteria in Berat? What is the connection between the two? This company had a turnover of 2.2 million dollars in 2014. Look at the turnover of the company, and then talk about the coffee. Shame on you for telling lies on a daily basis. What you have passed on is something about which anyone with conscience would blush, but you talk as if you were a Godsend.
Not to mention the other nonsense, according to which I am “angry at them”. I am not angry at them. I am angry at you. You are not them. They are poor things coming after you. I am angry at you who use any means. Since you claim that you love them very much, tell how many legalization did form them. This is how you can tell who loves them and who is mocking them. Go and tell them what you legalized. You legalized motels, cafeterias, swimming pools, trampolines on monuments of cultural heritage, not houses. According to you, they belonged to you, that’s why you didn’t want them to develop and grow, for they would have understood whom they were following.
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Not a second of my time, not a second of the Socialist Party’s attention are worth to deal with your speeches and rhetoric about the justice reform. Who between you and us wants justice reform, it is up to the people to decide. Don’t worry about it. Go on with your jibber-jabber. We are here, and I am telling you only one thing – I know very well, maybe you know it as well – those who undermine justice reform will receive such a response in the next election, like never before. It is up to the people to decide whether I am the saboteur or not. We will see this in the coming elections. So, do well your maths, although there are no more maths for you to be done. You’ve made up your mind that another loss will follow the previous one. There is no chance for you to win the elections, because in order for you to win the elections, you need first of all to be an opposition. You are still the old government. I took the floor just to tell you this. This is our position. We have no other position, and we’ve had it since the first day. If you like to continue with your jibber-jabber, go on. Sabotage the reform, delay it. No problem. We will see it in the elections, as you saw it when you wanted Albanians to buy the theory that we are preventing integration. You saw it back then, and we can see it again!
