After a very long debate, the Albanian Parliament passed the Budget 2014 in principle with 78 votes in favor and 37 against.
Prime Minister Edi Rama declared that this budget ends the ruin and brings the country to a new direction.
“We will regulate the state’s accounts. The previous government left a big mess. Everyone who has followed this debate, besides the disappointment about what they heard here, should feel good because this Parliament is the arena of the free speech, where everyone has the chance to speak and have something to say when they don’t know what to say”, Rama declared.
The opposition has opposed the budget in question with the argument that it will ruin the country’s economy.
“The draft budget disorients the economy. Consumption, enterprising and investments are receiving an unilateral hit. More taxes for family consumption, for production, and more than 84 million USD will be taken for fuels. Salaries will have a higher tax which mounts at 13 million USD”, declared the former Minister of Finances, Ridvan Bode.
The Socialist Movement for Integration Parliament Member, Petrit Vasili, declared that the budget was consulted with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and there’s no reason to not vote it.
Former Prime Minister Sali Berisha and former Parliament Speaker, Jozefina Topalli, repeated their accusations of one day ago about the government’s draft budget.
“The budget was secretly planned in the government’s cave. Your marathon that took all night to hide a truth, finally arrived at the finish line, which is the line of shame, a procedure that is hiding the truth through taxes. They are not lowering taxes, but they are raising them and are taking money from the citizens’ pockets. This is a shameful procedure, in function of a catastrophe that this budget has”, Berisha declared.
“In three months you opened a 500 million USD pit, you lost the status as recommended twice, and brought the budget 1.5 months later. Every page of that budget hash a C4 for your families, a time bomb and explosive that blows apartment buildings up”, Topalli declared.
The Minister of Defense, Mimi Kodheli, declared that the Budget 2014 for the Minister of Defense is 14 billion ALL, 10% of which need to go to unpaid obligations left by the past government.
“With the new budget we need to pay old delayed debts for salaries, diets and other services. You removed the food of the military, their uniforms are old. Your debts didn’t spare even the missions in Afghanistan. 328 million ALL are to be paid for an absurd agreement for the military uniforms, which are old. 10% of the budget 2014 will go for debts”, Kodheli declared.
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