The Albanian Deputy Prime Minister, Niko Peleshi, who is also director
of the Task Force for energy, explained in an interview for Top Channel
that the solution of the financial crisis in the energy sector will not
come from increasing the power price for consumers.
“The Albanian government and the Ministry of Energy have never thought that the solution is increasing the energy price. We have never seen it as an alternative, for as long that we have a huge opportunity to increase the financial power of CEZ by reducing technical losses and even robberies”, Peleshi declared.
The Deputy Prime Minister says that the government is determined in this position and this will be confirmed by the achievements of the past three months.
“Only in these three months we have encased 21-22 million USD more. The losses we inherited by the former government reached 48%. Today we have reduced them with 4.1-4.2%. We are in the limit of 44%. Our goal is to reach 35% in the next trimester”, Peleshi declared.
The data show that only the consumers’ debts to CEZ reach $1 billion. These debts don’t include losses which take 200 million USD each year from the state budget.
“Imagine the reserve CEZ has by reducing losses”, Peleshi declared.
Besides establishing the task force, the government warned for a series of strong measures against energy thieves, with punishments going up to five years in prison. But the Deputy Prime Minister says they are working with another direction in parallel.
“We will keep working through the task force, through CEZ, and by establishing harsher measures, which I am sure will give their effect. On the other hand, we will encourage CEZ and will invite our international partners, such as the World Bank, EBRD, etc, to cooperate with us with a package of investments that will turn CEZ into a profiting company”, Peleshi declared.
The deep crisis in the energy scetor, according to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, not only is hampering the economic growth, but it has also turned into one of the biggest dangers for the financial stability of our country.
Top Channel
