Statement by the Minister of Social Welfare and Youth, Erion Veliaj, following the meeting of the Council of Ministers:

I am presenting some of the Decisions that the Council of Ministers took today. Maybe, the most important decision is the one to help 203.928 Albanian families, so approximately 204 thousand Albanian families, by compensating electricity.

The Council of Ministers has allocated to the Ministry of Social Welfare an amount of 16 million dollars that will be distributed to these 203.928 families. For the sake of transparency and in order to understand who are those who will be compensated for removing the category of energy, I am listing the beneficiary groups:

– Families that receive economic aid: 88.094 beneficiary families.

– Heads of family retired or that receive a disability pension: 80 thousand families.

– Families that have member(s) with disability: approximately 7000 thousand families.

– Blind people, according to the DCM nr. 404: 13.016 families.

– Paraplegics and tetraplegics, according to the DCM 404: 6.818 families.

– State employees earning a monthly salary lower than 35 thousand ALL: 9000 thousand families.

In total, 203,928 families multiplied by residents and members of each family, over 1 million 200 thousand Albanians in these families will have a compensation for the removal of the protective category 300 kilowatt / hour.

If there are citizens who have listened to the debates and are unclear about why we compensate these families, it is for a very simple reason: 98% of pensioners pay electricity. This is why every amount that we make available to families of pensioners is guaranteed that will reward this correct behavior of 98% of Albanian pensioners.

93% of the disabled, paraplegic, quadriplegic, blind pay electricity. Therefore, this money is not wasted, but it compensates for this difference by removing the category for those families 93% of whom pay electricity.

Finally we have a state that does not reward evasive behavior, does not reward violation of law, does not reward theft of electricity, does not reward the failure of paying taxes, does not reward the failure of paying social insurances. We have a state that rewards good behavior, civic behavior, fair behavior and conduct under the laws of this country, for those poorest citizens of this country over 90% of whom pay every bill, mainly electricity.

The amount that each of these individuals and representatives of these families will receive as automatic addition to the payment of their family, is 6480 ALL per month.

All those families who thanks to the awareness campaign will save energy, which means that they will spend less, will not have this money back. So, it is not a refund; it is an automatic addition to the pension, to the disability payment and to other payments of economic aid that families in need receive.

If a family receives this automatic addition to the budget and spends less electricity than in the past months, there is no obligation to return any cents. The entire amount can be considered a direct increase of the pension or of the payments to these families.

The second announcement I have to make, since we are talking about pensioners, is about another decision of the Council of Ministers to ratify the draft agreement with Luxembourg for recognition of pension years.

It is an agreement that we signed last year and now time has come to ask Parliament to ratify it as soon as possible, so that within this year our citizens benefit higher pensions from the signing of this agreement.

As announced yesterday, technical negotiations will start on Monday – political negotiations have been successfully completed – for pensions agreement with Germany. The next step will be the agreement with Canada. We are about to start negotiations with Austria, and meanwhile we ended negotiations with Romania and Macedonia to be concluded this year.

Since we are on pensions, I want to mention another bill to be presented to Parliament and which has to do with pensions of senior state officials. What we have promised is that we will show a supportive state who, for those who are most in need will have to lower the retirement age, for those who can work harder will increase the retirement age. I will tell you what categories are concerned.

We have lowered the retirement age by 5 years for miners. The only category that is going to have the retirement age increased are senior state officials, ministers, deputy ministers, the Prime Minister, the President, MPs, who before retired at age 55. The exchange we have done is a fair and social exchange. Miners with a lower life expectancy, chronic diseases, as you saw yesterday when the prime Minister gave a doubled pension to the retired miner, will decrease from 60 to 55 years, and this happened. While the high functionaries have no difficulty working that someone has in mine, age according to the draft that will go to the parliament will go from 55 years to 60 years to show that politics is the first to be pay a price for reform, before they ask citizens to pay their obligations also.

While the senior officials have not the same hardships of someone who works in mine, according to the draft bill that will go to the parliament, age will go from 55 years to 60 years to show that politics is the first to pay a price for reform, before they ask citizens to pay their dues.

And since we’re saying that politics should be the first to pay its dues, you have listened to a debate during these days that has to do with the issue of missing payments from Social Insurances.

We say it  day and night, that in the last 8 years in Albania a real mess has been going on with a financial bill of 109, 5 million dollars. The least someone should do is either to apologize or not to talk at all. But we see how much they are proud of the governance of imaginary achievements and how they deny anything that has to do with the way this country was governed, when the state was working illegally.

We’ve had 1,600 institutions that worked illegally. I want to explain very well to the opposition that I have never said 250 thousand state employees. I said 250 thousand Albanians that both in the state and in the private sector have gaps in their pensions.

Some gaps are probably only of a month, a month of delayed payment. Some gaps are of several months, some gaps are of several years, while some spectacular institutions have not paid for 8 years during the former government.

What we have done is that after filtering this material, we are submitting the folders to the Prosecutor’s Office and we hope that cooperation with the Prosecutor’s will give soon its fruits to show that those responsible for this economic crime will go before the law .

All companies that have arrears in social insurances will receive a letter starting from this week. Our goal is neither to disparage the companies, nor to ruin their reputation, their image. Our goal is very clear, that every worker in the Republic of Albania will not be considered a slave. And as long as there is a contract and these workers have worked, let’s say in an unsophisticated position, as might be the toll manufacturing or other positions with higher wages, to us they are all alike. If someone has been deducted 9.5% of the salary to pay social insurances, and this amount has not been paid to the taxes for social insurances, this is a robbery. It is like someone is stolen 9.5% of what he/she has in the pocket. They have been stolen 9.5% of the money for as long as that money is not in their salary.

 

So what I need to do is to encourage all companies to rush and pay and consider this time, a period during which they can pay all their dues within the 15th February. After February 15th, we will begin a campaign of sanctions, similar to the energy campaigning, which will not be stopped. I guarantee that for this campaign we have the support of every healthy and honest business in Albania, which is in fact the majority of the business. I am saying this because the majority of the business that works, including social insurance bill, produces a product that is more expensive compared to another business that produces with the social insurances bill removed. This is unfair competition. And for any business complying with the law, and the majority of businesses complies with the law, others are also asked to pay social insurance, otherwise it is unfair competition. To someone, the same product comes with lower cost because he evades taxes on such payments. So given that we have the agreement of the majority of fair business, we ask that all others be set at an equal level to respect the competition within the business, but mainly to preserve the rights of workers and to understand that slavery cannot exist in the Republic Albania in 2015.

We asked citizens to report to our ministry the cases that they themselves know, given the limited  capacity of our state. I want to use this opportunity to urge all citizens: If you know any institution, if you know any venture that has been damaged, or if you themselves have been damaged from failure of payment or illegal work, please report and denounce. Please come to one of our institutions, be it a social insurances agency, work inspectorate or job offices, or go to denonco@sociale.gov.al to denounce. Please cooperate!

Your cooperation translates into job vacancies, translates into more pensions, as it was proven yesterday when the new scheme for some people immediately produced a higher pension of 30 thousand ALL in the first days of retirement. The new scheme rewards the multiplication of the working years with the payment. Therefore, if any of the citizens feels threatened by illegal work, I urge you to report in one of the sources mentioned before.

As for the opposition, I think that this is a moment to reflect on what state we had in the recent years. We had a state governed by a character who worked illegally and ruled a country that worked illegally. Some people came and rightly wondered, perhaps theoretically, how it is possible because payments are equal to social insurances and salaries.

Together we have witnessed, the media has witnessed massive employment during campaigns, by 200, 300 and 400 people. You know very well that the wage fund is allocated at the beginning of the year. If we had elections in June or July, this means that the existing wage fund was used to increase by 200 or 300 people.

Since there was no salaries for these people the social insurance fund was used to pay for 2-3 months of the campaign. During these 2-3 months these people have worked illegally because their social insurances were not paid, and the money was used to pay the salaries of militants, but they have actually affected also the social insurances of those who had long-term contracts with these public bodies.

Therefore, today I want to use this opportunity to tell citizens that whenever you watch these people on TV, when you see former defense ministers, remember that we had a NATO army without social insurances, a NATO army that went to Afghanistan, went to Chad, went to Iraq without insurances, without pensions.

Whenever you see the former ministers of education, if you are a teacher, look closely at them because they are the people left you without pensions. We have had several dozen of cases, some education offices that were working illegally, and before you hear nonsense and personal insults, remember that they left you without pensions these 8 years.

If you are a doctor or a nurse and see those who seem surprised as if they just arrived in Albania, and not as if it was them who left us with this mess, remember that it was them who didn’t care at all about physicians or nurses and left them without pensions for 8 years.

What should I do, besides answering this cacophony and those who wonder how come Albania worked this way, while it was them who left the country in this situation, I assure all citizens that as far as state debt is concerned, we are taking all measures together with the ministry of finance and many state agencies that have begun to make payments.

The Army is in the vanguard of performing these payments that have been missing in the past 8 years, and the same are doing other institutions. I guarantee every citizen who worked for the public administration, and for us it is an honor to serve your country, to serve the Republic of Albania, we will respect them by paying every due of state institutions.

Having said this and giving the personal example as a country that pays its own people, we can then ask businesses to meet the same obligations. So we put a deadline, March 31, to have this story ended.

Therefore, by 15 February all businesses will need to make arrangements to pay their delayed social insurances, and of course at the best of its possibilities and in a much faster time the state will enable repayment of its dues, to ensure that 2015 will be the year when people does not work illegally. 2015 is a year without debts from the past, and 2015 is a reminder of how things used to be when the whole Republic of Albania worked illegally.

Thank you very much!