Focus
The Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama has decided to declare an emergency situation regarding the supply of electricity due to the dizzying increase in the price of electricity in international markets.
This decision was made at Friday’s extraordinary government meeting which was followed by the proclamation of this austerity measure in a press conference.
“A general situation of dizzying rise in energy prices in international markets gives the government the opportunity to intervene with both financial and administrative instruments,” said Rama, who beat about the bush regarding the percentage of the hike of the electricity prices. It remains to be learned on Saturday as declared by him. It is also not known if he himself will give details on the increases or if his aides will take the burden to spread this bitter news to Albanians.
According to Rama, the decision on the emergency situation paves the way for the execution of the special plan to deal with this situation that will be made public on Saturday. Comparing the situation as similar to the pandemic crisis, Rama said the plan of measures would aim to protect consumers in a priority order.
“It’s a very similar situation in terms of the shock to the pandemic situation in the sense that everyone is affected. Of course, unlike the pandemic, different countries have some different characteristics, but everyone is involved in a rational way for how they should cope with this situation. Experts think that the crisis will be present with its peak until the middle of next year, and at the same time they think that even after overcoming the climax the prices will not return to where they were before the crisis,” Rama said.
He reiterated that what the government has to do is to protect Albanian consumers by following the course of priorities on the basis of starting from the weakest to the strongest, not the other way around.
“It is up to us to protect consumers with a priority order, given those who are most in need and going up through the small business and the one with the highest income, from the weakest to the strongest,” he said.
Rama described the 7 proposals of the Democratic Party chairman, Lulzim Basha, unveiled a few days for facing the situation of the energy crisis, as proposals of the time of the pyramid schemes, whose collapse plunged Albania into a bloody turmoil as people lost their life savings in 1997.
In addition he the government head said the energy crisis does not mean that Albania will spend a winter without light. “If it were a winter without light, we would tell you to get ready. “We are discussing the protection of consumers from the storm. Turning off the lights would be easy if we are not here to do things easily.”
In the meantime Rama said that the declared economic growth of the Albanian economy did not mean increase of salaries and pensions. It is not clear if this declaration denies the earlier promises for an increase of salaries and pensions. “My happy day will be when the pensions are increased,” Rama said a few months ago which was expected by experts and pensioners themselves with skepticism. Some considered it the consistent behavior of Rama to make fun with the ordinary people, particularly the elderly, by telling lies.
Rama crossed the borders of Albania and showed Albanians what was happening in Britain and Italy. “Today, the United Kingdom is announcing a plan of restrictions, power outages. Italy has increased the price of the (energy) bill by 40%. It has not happened in Albania, in Tirana to open points to get bread free of charge. This happened in Milan where bread was given to citizens gratis.”
Apparently Albania’s PM does not know that even in the US there are facilities where the needy get free meals and segments of the population live on the dole.
Rama closed by saying: “A large part, those who cry the most, are the ones who have more income than what they show. Let’s not forget that if we trust only the declared income, many things would not go as they have in the past. Albania has the highest number of small deposit savings in banks. This shows that the situation is stable, “Rama said. / Argumentum.al
