The Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, attended the inauguration ceremony for the complete restoration of the
Former Political Persecuted Institution.
He said that these citizens will be compensated for all the years passed
in prison.
“Despite the difficult economic conditions; although we left an extraordinary crisis that could have been fatal for Albania; although we found in our way a $720 million mountain of unknown debts, of unregistered debts; and although these could have been our justification to not grant more funds than our predecessors, we have granted the biggest annual fund that any government has ever given for the former political prisoners in a non-electoral year”, Rama declared.
“We have used $18 million from the state budget. The first one who will benefit are the former political prisoners who are alive today, and who haven’t been able to benefit anything”, the Prime Minister added.
“We must calculate that the total number of cases is 12,760. 2027 are a lot. The remaining part is not in the phase of the first installment. They have received two installments. There are others who have received all the three installments and are not that persecuted”, Rama declared.
12760 political prisoners have completed the application form, and their compensation will be realized step by step.
“We will pay 10 million USD for the first installment to bring a sense of equality among those who haven’t received anything at all. We will pat 8 million USD remained for this year for those who are still alive. We will give priority to the persecuted people who have to pay the bills and face other problems. We will certainly respect everyone of their successors, nephews and nieces, but by changing the formula and by giving priority to those who are alive, regardless of their age”, declared the Minister of Social Welfare, Erion Veliaj.
The Minister declared that not much has been done for the persecuted people in these 20 years, who lost a great part of their lives in prisons. After restoring the building, the Ministry of Social Welfare will digitalize the entire information of the former political prisoners, in order to make it easier for the compensation procedure.
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