EU tender on Albania’s social insurance

TIRANA, Aug. 23 – The European Union will call a tender for a project to modernise the Albanian Social Insurance Institute (ISSH) at a cost of up to 700,000 euro, the EU said on Wednesday. The provisional deadline to tender is October and the provisional commencement date of the contract is November 1, the Tenders Electronic Daily, the supplement database to the EU’s Official Journal, reported on its website. Applications should be submitted not later than September 27, it said.
The main objective of the project is to contribute to the re-engineering of the overall process of the social benefits administered by ISSH. It is to be carried out within 12 months from the provisional commencement date. The work will focus on improving ISSH’s capacity in managing the process of awarding social benefits, ensuring consistency and speed in all steps from claim to payment; enabling the rationalisation of the social insurance regulatory framework, in line with EU social insurance legislation and increasing the transparency of and confidence in the social insurance system.
The project is funded by the EU’s Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilisation (CARDS) programme for Albania for 2005 under which it will get 44.2 million euro in assistance. ISSH administers Albania’s social insurance system, including mandatory, voluntary and supplementary social insurance and state pensions provided to particular groups of people such as members of former national movements, participants in the anti-Nazi fight during World War Two, people who suffered political harassment during communist rule, and those with outstanding achievements in arts, culture, science, economics and politics. ISSH collected 31.6 billion leks ($331.1 million/258.6 million euro) in social contributions last year, up nine percent from the previous year.