Extra revenues distributed under normative act

TIRANA, Jan. 22 – The ruling Socialist Party-led government has made some new changes to the 2013 budget redistributing 5 billion lek (Euro 35) of extra revenue to social assistance for people with disabilities and payment of accumulated unpaid bills to the construction sector. The extra revenues are reported to have been collected during the last two months of 2013 due to a boom in imports after government announced plans to raise fuel and tobacco taxes.
Some 1.9 billion lek will go to the Social Welfare Ministry for the payment of accumulated assistance to people with disabilities and other categories in need. Meanwhile, 3 billion lek will go to the Transport Ministry to pay off part of the 16 billion lek (Euro 111 million) government owes to construction companies for finished public works.
Ervin Ko詬 a Socialist Party MP and member of the parliamentary economy committee said the need to intervene through a normative act was a result of inability to pay off social assistance payments under the changed 2013 budget and the need to pay off part of accumulated unpaid bills to the construction sector.
Under a normative act last October, the Socialist Party-led government cut government spending by 16.2 billion lek (Euro 113 million), while the budget deficit target for 2013 was raised to 6.2 percent.
Finance Minister Shkelqim Cani said the situation was a result of underperforming revenues, high pre-electoral spending and accumulated unpaid bills by the previous government which was in office until early last September.