Leader of the Democratic Party Sali Berisha has stated that Prime Minister Edi Rama has treated pensioners inhumanely throughout the 12 years he has been in government.
Berisha made the comments during a conversation with pensioners, where he unveiled the Democratic Party's program for the elderly, writes A2 CNN.
Berisha also said that Prime Minister Rama is keeping the administration in illegal work without social security.
Excerpt from Berisha's speech:
First, I express my greatest respect and humility for all the contributions you have made to this country, to your families, to yourselves, to society, to Albania.
I also express my deep regret, but also my pain over the fact that you, hundreds of thousands of women and men, who poured your energies, your minds, your talents, your abilities into the development of this country, are today in an incomparably more difficult situation, economically, than your peers in any other country.
Today, over 780,000 pensioners face, apart from a portion of them who have maximum pensions, others face serious difficulties with monthly and daily food, with medications that are usually needed at this age, and with other necessary care.
Most of you live off the aid that your children and family members send you, because pensions are absolutely undeserved pensions, and in this context, in this framework, I must tell you that the attitude towards you is the attitude towards human dignity.
A person should live in dignity, but when you condemn a person to poverty, you also violate their dignity.
Why do I say it condemns? Because in 12 years you have witnessed, you have proven with your daily life that your pensions have increased much less than prices.
If prices in stores have doubled, sometimes even more than doubled, and this is about the basic prices.
If the reimbursement of medicines has decreased and unfortunately even the ones you buy are substandard, it is because they annulled the law for the interests of the mafia, the law that guaranteed EU standards.
So, today you are the most ignored and most undeserved class.
There is no question that pensions are based on the pension fund.
But when we talk about real transition, then we must accept the transition in all areas.
The pension fund is also in transition.
But here we come. The attitudes of this government for 12 years have been irresponsible, to say the least.
They have also been ruthless in some respects because every government in January, when it prepares the state budget, that government allocates this much for salaries, this much for pensions, this much will be allocated for schools, kindergartens, healthcare, and so on.
But you disappeared from the voice. Not the salaries. The high salaries tripled. Now you know one thing, today Albania, as they say, has the highest salaries in the region for artists.
The difference between the highest salary, the average salary, and the average pension is the largest in the region, which is inhumane.
Because you may be the President of the Republic, but even the one who prints, even the one who cleans, even the one who has children. They also spend and consume.
That's why a calculation is always made so that this difference is not greater than 4-5 times. Here it is 10-12 times. And they did it. We had it 4-5 times.
It turned out very clearly that Edi Rama, let's not even mention his name, says that the pension fund does not allow us to increase pensions. And if we increase pensions from the budget, we will suffer a catastrophe. There is no greater deception.
It is true that in countries that have decades and decades of discipline in managing pension funds, in social contributions and using the fund to increase it through investments, it is the fund that affords them.
But this country is not us. Nor are the countries of the region.
So what happens? It's added from the budget.
What we did in 2005-2013. We found the minimum pension was 36 euros and increased it to 82 euros.
We found the average pension to be 110 euros and increased it to 143 euros.
Two months ago, Kosovo declared that it would increase pensions by 20 percent and took 100 million euros from the budget and placed them in the pension fund.
Now this fraudster, whose moral is deception, holds a meeting, takes some pensioners, takes some businessmen on the other side, and tells them it's your fault that you keep workers in poverty without social security, and therefore they don't receive their pensions.
But do you know who is suffering the most without social security? Edi Rama's administration.
There are hundreds of millions of euros in deficit in the fund because Edi Rama does not pay social security to administration employees.
This is the truth.
First of all, the state itself must pay. When the state does not pay social security, it is a state that has no moral standards.
When those social security benefits are for those who have worked hard to make this country a success, and those who work in the administration, the state does not give them money, because there is no responsibility for the employee here, they keep most of the administration in the black without social security. (A2 Televizion)
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