I thought it is irrelevant to hold a traditional press conference as it is the case at the end of every year, but I let the big war anti-inflation package speak for itself for the retired people, the families participating in the economic assistance scheme, the people with disabilities, disabled people at work, who, like never before, will receive additional financial support, because, like never before,  they would have to cope with a tough winter with the war-driven inflation having a serious impact on their basic daily consumption.

We couldn’t let them alone in the face of this difficult winter for whole Europe and, most importantly, we cannot abandon the most vulnerable people. Therefore, taking notice primarily of the need to lift that disturbing hand from their basic consume, we designed the big assistance package. However, this assistance package neither replaces nor alters our promise that the retirees will be the first beneficiaries from the extraordinary tax on the big electricity producers in the country that we adopted in Parliament as part of the 2023 fiscal package. As such, this package, which envisages a lump-sum bonus of 8000Lek for each retiree and which will be distributed starting in the first week of the next year, is not the last additional support for the retired people during next year.

The package envisages a bonus of 20,000 lek for 6700 female family heads entitled to economic assistance. For the very first time, the government will also allocate 20,000 lek for sanitary workers, drivers, the state’s support service workers and every public administration employee with a gross monthly wage of up to 60,000 lek, a total of 27 249 people, including 1181 fire fighters, 3267 nurses, 6045 teachers, 2200 soldiers and thousands of low-ranking administration employees! I am very happy when thinking that their families won’t feel the effects of the war-triggered inflation during this difficult winter. But the Big Package also includes employees with gross wage of over 60.000 lek, excluding the high-level political officials within the public administration. A total of 11,000 nurses, 5411 doctors, 30, 693 teachers, 15, 384 security workers, prison police, as well as 14, 318 public administration employees will receive a bonus of 10,000 lek, an amount that adds to their salaries this year practically reducing the inflation effect to almost zero for their families. In the meantime, although they receive higher gross pay of over 60,000 lek, the army infantry members, who fought and deserved the NATO’s excellence certificate, the members of the Special Delta Force, the Rapid Intervention Unit, the Operational Unit and the fire fighters will all receive a bonus of 20,000 lek.

The big assistance package certainly doesn’t ultimately tackle their plight, it doesn’t also put an end to the war and its inevitable impact on our economy, but along with the massive subsidy through the unchanged electricity price, it actually repels quite a tough winter, and it also embodies the government’s continued care and attention to the citizens of this country. 

We have never left them alone we will never do so, but instead we will do whatever it takes to support and provide them relief during these difficult days, just like we will do utmost efforts to bring increasingly better days. There is no end to the good, but this will increasingly be the government of the majority and if we can afford announcing a big support package for around one million Albanians, this is because we are here for each and every one of them, we are here for the majority of the Albanian citizens and not for some of them only.