Press release of Prime Minister Edi Rama following today’s meeting of the Council of Ministers:

Hello everyone!

I considered it very important to make a statement following today’s meeting of the Council of Ministers, because I believe this is an important moment, as outcome of a period which gives us the opportunity to intervene, today, in the budget of the country.

There are 3.2 billion lekë or 32 million dollars, neither more nor less, but that go beyond the ambitious target set together with the International Monetary Fund, which give us the opportunity to start as early as this year to reduce the deficit and public debt, although the target set jointly with the IMF was to reduce the deficit and debt starting from next year.

It is the first time after five consecutive years that the budget review by the Government is marked by growth and not decline. This means that we had the misfortune to have for five consecutive years a government that would make predictions beyond its capacity, using the money it was expected to have but that it actually did not have, for propagandistic tam-tams and then, at the end of the year come back in parliament to review the budget marked by decrease. For the first time in 5 years, we are reviewing the budget marked by growth.

Secondly, thanks to this review marked by growth, 4.3 billion lekë or 43 million dollars are made available to the most deprived classes of society, persons with disabilities, paraplegics and tetraplegics whose debts will be paid by the state once and for all. Debts that have been accumulated by a complete lack of sensitivity towards them, by the brutality of a governing model based on the propaganda to rule and not on the outcomes to serve. This huge social injustice, converted in instrument to shift the money owed to that social stratum in other directions, in order to possess power and not to rule, is over.

Thirdly, there are 15.2 billion lekë or 152 million dollars allocated for investments; investments that have mainly been abandoned and that will be made available for road infrastructure, ranging from the road of Valbona to the road Kukes-Has Krumë; the road Lushnje-Berat, which has become a gangrene for all those who have to travel on it; the road Lin Pogradec is another gangrene which leads to two particularly important tourist destinations as you are all witnesses, and as can witness all those who have been obliged to pass on those trails opened with little money, while millions of dollars have been spent just to cut ribbons, just to show off and lie to people with empty spoons; the road segments Plepa-Rrogozhinë, that have been also abandoned, will be funded in the most part of them; to continue with Korçë-Ersekë and with all 51 road infrastructure projects that have been abandoned and that have been financed up to plus 50%, now will be financed 100%. So, the remaining part will be now strongly funded and companies will be monitored so that they will work day and night in order to have those investments done. Meanwhile, there are another 100 projects across Albania, helpless, penniless for which inauguration ribbons were cut while excavators were still laying chippings, with totally inadequate funding. These projects will be introduced in the financing program in order to move the process further, although they won’t be completed within this year.

-Health infrastructure

I pay great attention to your objective chronicles on problems in the health sector. It is the most difficult sector, where we have undertaken a fundamental reform. But we shall not forget that we found the health system not “skin and bone” but “bone without skin”. Now we will invest 1.1 billion lekë in emergency vehicles, about 20 new ambulances, first aid helicopters, so that in the next tourist season, but also throughout the year, we will not be in the conditions we were left in by the situation we inherited; two very important dialysis equipment, one for the north and one for the south of Albania, and completion of the sanatorium reconstruction, another abandoned investment which we believe will finally be done and completed.

-Education infrastructure

When we would promise or commit to introduce digital tablets in schools, many mocked at us, others looked at us as if we spoke the language of UFOs. There are practically 700 million lekë or 7 million dollars to finance the project of transition from books to digital tablets that will close a gap which you with much objectivity pointed out even now that school started. Yesterday, I saw in the press review I receive from the Press Office that the show “Fiks Fare” has devoted a special section for families who cannot afford to pay for books. So, this gap is closed since, starting from next year the project of digital tablets will be implemented, but we must take into account that the project – given the way it is conceptualized and how it will begun to be implemented – will not be implemented immediately throughout the territory, because there is a piloting, and then a second stage and so on, but we strongly believe that by the end of this term we will be able to cover most of the territory and that children, without distinction, could have digital tablet despite of the fact that their parents can afford it or not to pay for books.

It is an epochal leap, thanks to this new technology. We made a deal with Google to get free platform. Meanwhile, we will go further not only by using digital boards and bill borders or old blackboards, digital screens in the classroom, but also by including parents into the system, so that parents will be informed in real time via mobile phone from the electronic register of teachers on absences, grades and so on.

-Order infrastructure 

You must recall a campaign we made, among others, with the image of a policeman pushing his car. And you have certainly been informed also on the report made by the international audit in the Ministry of Interior on the vehicles’ conditions. As far as vehicles are concerned, ours is the most run-down police in the continent, and perhaps in the world. So, 300 million lekë have been immediately allocated to the Ministry of Interior to get new police equipment.

-Technological infrastructure

It has been many years since Albania has not renewed what is called “orthophoto” or digital photograph of the territory, which can provide full information on the territory but not only. It can also be used to control the territory through continuous systematic control, simply through digitalization, without having to go on the spot. 450 million lekë, about 4.5 million dollars have been allocated for orthophoto, which will finally replace a tool that was completely obsolete.

Another piece of news on the eve of the important visit of September 21 which proves also full will to support and promote religious harmony and coexistence.

On one side, we will close the chapter of the long ordeal that has prevented the construction of the new Mosque, making available the expropriation fund. We will keep our commitment to have a new Mosque without an adjacent building and supermarket, and not a building with supermarket and adjacent Mosque, similar to the project proposed by the Municipality of Tirana for reasons that the Municipality of Tirana knows, but that we know as well and that everybody knows. But we are not here to discuss whose the building was, whose the supermarket was and who was supposed to come nearby and pray, as if they were there just to receive alms. The park made ​​available will be the park of faith and believers, without buildings, supermarkets, sold apartments, or apartments to keep.

On the other hand, we will directly finance the remaining part in order to conclude the works for the long-delayed construction of the Great Tekke of the Bektashi Order. The Great Tekke of the Bektashi is a project – you know it since you have consistently followed their holidays – of late and much-remembered from all, Head of the Bektashi, Baba Reshat, who has not found peace because this project cannot be completed yet, because the community has funded, funded, funded, but still a last support was needed and we have finally made ​​it possible to support this project.

-We have also allocated a fund for urban greening. We do not forget any of our commitments. We have promised and we will keep our promise to plant in 4 years more trees than have been planted in 20 years taken together. We will have a fund for urban greening to allocate to cities that will submit or have submitted finished projects through the Regional Development Fund. We will have a strong plantation season in inhabited areas after so many years, where the only thing left was the shade created by trees planted in Tirana in the years 2000-2010.

At the end there is something else I really want to say. We undertook one of the most important reforms to free small entrepreneurs and big entrepreneurs, all entrepreneurs in general, from the two-party tax system and to have one tax administration system, removing it from the local government and leaving it to the Tax administration of the Republic of Albania.

Where has this led? This has led to a substantial amount of additional income and a significant reduction of trouble for small business, for shopkeepers and all those who live from small business, as a result of a constant pressure from all sorts of faces and all sorts of gendarmes coming from all kinds of directions.

It is a considerable extra, which will return to municipalities and local government units. So, we will not keep anything from this amount, but we will give it all back to municipalities so that they can administer and do good deeds for people and communities.

This is the government of the “Alliance for European Albania”.

Today, I am particularly happy because we are giving a concrete meaning to a titanic effort among the ruins, garbage pits inherited in a country that could not breathe.

Albania has started to breathe. Albania is far from being the Albania that we dream of, is far from being the Albania it will be by the end of this first term, but it is the Albania that is breathing throughout the territory. And through this work, we will achieve something else as well, that is having the efficiency of investment and the viability of the investment plan to be one of the highest in 20 years.