Socialist Party MP Luljeta Bozo has said that citizens should show solidarity with the economic crisis which has gripped Albania and the world, as a result of the war in Ukraine.
Ms. Bozo, 82, was a retired construction engineer, who attracted media attention in the aftermath of an earthquake in November 2019, when she blamed the quality of construction materials and unnamed developers for the devastation caused to buildings. However she spread optimism that there would not any other destruction.
SP head Edi Rama then picked her as a candidate for parliament and placed her first on his Socialist Party’s candidate list for the Tirana area.
Bozo said in a TV talk show on Tuesday that Albanians should show solidarity with the situation following apparently the same pattern of the earthquake situation but the reality of the economic state of Albania is desperate. She apparently does not think so now as a SP deputy, rather despite her old age she is aggressive different from the kind old lady of the earthquake time.
“People need to be made aware that they have eyes on their foreheads… This is an extraordinary situation,” Bozo told Albanians on Tuesday. Speaking about pensions, she said that the increase of 3,000 ALL, calculated as a subsidy to cope with the increase in prices for basket products, is also calculated based on inflation. According to her, now that taxes on salaries below 40,000 ALL have been removed, in the coming years insurance will increase and consequently pensions. According to her, the 3,000 lek compensation is the supplement that a pensioner receives and this is help.
The average pension in Albania is $150 per month the lowest in the region and Europe.
A pensioner before becoming a deputy Bozo advised the most vulnerable segment of the society part of which she was before to be ‘patient and objective’. “You should know that pensions do not come from the work that people have done. People who worked 30-40 years ago paid insurance, links are broken,” said Socialist Bozo.
Albanians expressed outrage after Luljeta Bozo commended Stalinist leader Enver Hoxha in March 2021 in one of her first public comments since being nominated as a Socialist candidate by Prime Minister Edi Rama.
In her talk on Tuesday she said things will start to improve step by step, year after year and even if the taxes for the salary below 40,000 lek were removed, they will have the opportunity to accumulate more insurance, more money and gradually the pension will increase.
Asked if the abolition of VAT is necessary to bring down prices for basket and hydrocarbon products, Bozo said it would have any affect. “The reduction of VAT for the consumer has no result. The state subsidizes 80% of the energy, of what we pay at home, but where does the state get this money from?” said Bozo.
A retired engineer by profession it’s a bit surprising the financial ‘expertise’ of Bozo who, of course, recites what she has been taught by the current leader, but what is more surprising is the civic courage of an 80- year old woman to tell poor old Albanians of her age living in misery to wait and be objective as this is an extraordinary situation. Has Bozo really forgotten that pensioners of her age can not wait indefinitely for the miracle sold out by her current boss? They need state’s help now! / Argumentum.al
