The opposition accused the government of not selling the national
lottery license for the interest of the citizens, but they are giving it
to their private clients.
“There is no public interest on this case. The interest of Berisha is not to earn dozens of millions of EUR for the budget, but to have his client profit and sell the license for only 3.5 million EUR”, declared the Socialist MP, Erjon Brace,
The Minister of Finances reacted by saying that the state has no direct benefit from the lottery, and the priority was not the price, but putting obstacles to the dirty capitals.
But why didn’t the government try to put obstacles to the dirty capitals and have the price as a priority as well?
“Our councilor advised us that with a priority price, dozens of suspicious companies would come with big amounts of money. We thought that setting a higher initial price is not a right criterion. This is how we have been advised, and this is how we acted”.
However, the Minister of Finances says that the license is not being given away, because the state budget will profit through a law that obliges the company to give 10% of the general turnover, besides the taxes.
But the opposition has insisted for months to keep the lottery as a public property and use it for the social policies of the state.
“The interest is to let that lottery a monopoly of the state. In the competition of our race we had the Austrian state owned company. The EU countries keep these companies public, and we want to privatize it?”, declared the Socialist MP, Erjon Brace.
As for the national lottery of Malta, mentioned by the Greek Company Intralot, Bode declared that the license in Malta is currently suspended. He added that the state must not be an economic actor, especially in an area like this, gambling, which would include the state in many accusations in the future.
The national lottery in Malta is owned by Maltco Lottery, which has 75% of the shares entitled to the Greek “Intralot”. The tender was held on March and the price reached 39 million EUR, while the second company offered 36 million EUR.
The Socialist MP, Erjon Brace, reacted on his Facebook saying that he is shocked by the answer of the Minister of Finances, regarding the fact that the Minister is totally depended from the adviser.
“We didn’t know that the government has given the tender for the adviser, giving to a single winner the attributes that should be exerted by the state. And his declaration that the price was not a priority, but only the blocking of dirty capitals, is scandalous, because the Albanian tax payers pay many agencies for blocking the dirty capitals”, Brace declared.
According to Brace, the government had the legal possibility to block the dirty capitals and at the same time to profit money for the budget, but they chose to give to their client a business that could reach 100 million EUR, the same amount that the government is trying to take as loan from the World Bank.
Brace concludes the reaction by appealing the Prime Minister to cancel the tender in time.
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