Electricity import, KESH shocks budget

The long discussions with Prime Minister Berisha have convinced the Minister of Finances to correct the state budget of 2012, which has not entered in act and is awaiting the Presidential decree. The government has been obliged to review the law with the MPs, due to the strong changes expected.

“Shqip” newspaper has learned that the PM has signed a normative act of 5 billion ALL guarantee that KESH needs for the banks that will lend them money to buy energy. This will shock the public debt, which must not be bigger than 59.4% of the GDP.

This financial guarantee brings the debt to the 58.65 level, when the budget for 2012 has not been implemented yet. With these data, few people believe that the government will keep the debt under the legal limit.

This normative act is expected to spur debates in Parliament, since the 5 billion ALL guarantee is only half of what KESH wants, but the Ministry of Finances did not sign the entire sum at once, because that would automatically bring the debt to 60%.

But the law of public debt management might be reviewed and set a new rule that does not calculate the guarantee offered by the government for state companies as debt, and since they have a value of 50 billion USD, they would reduce the debt stock in around 55%.

The public debt stock for 2012 is expected to reach 825 billion ALL, while the debt service has a nominal value of 49.6 billion ALL, 28.9 of which, or 75% of the total, are in service of the inner debt.

Albania is actually importing a record amount of energy, up to 17 million KW hours per day, while for 2012 it is expected to buy almost 1.7 billion ALL, with a value of almost 13 billion ALL.

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