Prime Minister Edi Rama’s tour in the municipality of Kamze, Tirana, went on with a meeting with local girls and women, focusing on the accomplishments to date and the government measures and relief packages for the families all over the country.
In 2022, the government doubled the economic assistance payment for the female family heads, first with three or more children and then for the female family heads with two or more children starting as of October 1. As many as 6757 female family heads currently benefit from the social and economic assistance scheme.
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Thank you very much for attending this meeting and I believe this is the right place to talk about the current tough situation caused by humans. This is time is not about coping with an earthquake or a pandemic, but it is way too worse.
This situation affects each and every one of us, because the energy crisis and the war-driven inflation are both triggered to influence everyone. He who claims that we have nothing to do with this war and that no war is going on, but the government is to be blamed, he does so intentionally and primarily for political reasons and the ambition for power, for wishing ill to the people, as well as for no surprising reasons and it is no longer a surprise at all, because this is now a well-known fact, because some are serving exactly to the very people who have caused this situation or don’t know what they say because of anger. Because, not only war is going on, but the war on Ukraine is indeed a war on Europe and Ukraine is the excuse to bring Europe to its knees.
I am very glad that we have successfully made it to fully neutralize one of the weapons and prevent it from affecting the Albanian households, all the families, all the Albanian consumers by neutralizing one of the weapons of this war, namely the rising prices and the hard blow through the energy prices. In some way, we have also succeeded in partly neutralizing the other weapon, namely the war inflation, with the latest data showing that the current inflation rate is 8.3 % and the average annual rate is estimated at 6.5%, well below the inflation rate in other countries in the region that are experiencing two-digit inflation growth up to 20%, which is extremely high. And we have done a lot so that the families are protected from the real price or a new electricity rate different from the current price, which is the same pre-war price. We have also kept the electricity price for small businesses unchanged as it is the small business that provides almost all services to the consumers and if we were to increase the electricity price on the small business, the inflation rate would have been much higher by now and everyone would be facing really a very serious problem. The government has allocated EUR 460 million, or around half a billion euros to protect all the consumers from the energy crisis. It is absolutely an incredible crisis for Albania and our state budget, but we are convinced that protecting consumers is the right thing for us to do and the right decision for our citizens. Meanwhile, we are discussing the next year’s state budget bill. The state budget will double in 2023. I am convinced that doubling the state budget is a sufficient fact to reject all the statements of all of those who claim that things have gone from bad to worse, or that nothing has changed over all these years. We have increased the minimum wage twice this year and we will decide to raise it again next year and the minimum wage is set to edge up to 360,000 lek a month and probably 380,000 lek at a second phase next year, because it is important that we increase the low wages. We will keep raising the wages for the servicemen, the police officers, doctors, nurses, fire-fighters and we will definitely keep supporting the retirees. Despite the unfavourable conditions and the state budget woes, the government will provide another financial support to the retired people by early December, by granting a bonus of 5000 lek each. It is a modest sum of money that is given away to the retired people every year and this will be the case this year too. In the meantime, we will collect budget revenues for the retirees and the social vulnerable categories by levelling an extraordinary tax rate on the big electricity producers, because as this war has affected everyone, the energy producers have been lucky enough to generate electricity and sell it at unimaginably high prices.
However, it is impossible so that they can cash in on all the profits. We will collect a part of their profits through this tax and directly provide it for the people most in need and vulnerable groups, starting with the retirees, the families under the economic and social welfare scheme, the female family heads. We have doubled the financial assistance for the female family heads with two or more children, and the government will pay the social and health insurance contributions for them, practically treating him as employed women. I am talking about women with children younger than five years old, because raising such kids is something a lot more than working.
-I would like to thank you for coming and for your support. I would like to thank Mr. Prime Minister and Mrs. Lindita, as well as the mayors of the respective municipalities, and as a mental health professional and a parent of three children, I would like to say that I know Kamze for 20 years now. I was born and raised in Tirana, but I decided to build my life here 20 years ago. I know the reality of 20 years ago here and this municipality used to lack kindergartens, schools, water and power supplies, sports grounds and everything else. And this was really the case until five years ago. I would like to thank the Mayor and the human resources he has employed in delivering all the municipal services. A series of important projects have been absorbed thanks to the Mayor, but a lot definitely remains to be done. Thank you.
-I am from Mirdita region and a Kamez resident for 14 years now. I am a mother of three. Given my long working experience in kindergartens and nurseries, I really welcome the Mayor’s initiative to focus on construction of new schools and other educational facilities.
