TIRANA, Aug. 11 – Opposition Democratic Party MP Ridvan Bode, a former finance minister for eight years in the 2005-2013 period, has condemned the government rhetoric about its warned campaign against informality next September, saying that such a campaign cannot be led by police.
“Police operations cannot be used on everything, taxes are a kind of system and by this I mean even the computerization, the administration and the legal support provided by the justice system. We must have functional systems,” says Bode who was in charge of the country’s public finances during the Democrats’ eight years in power.
“If you have a prejudice against businesses that they are hiding taxes and inspect them in police style you will not achieve any results,” he told local media.
Bode said that the poor performance in collecting revenues is mostly a result of the deterioration of the real economy rather than the inability to manage taxes properly.
“I think that there are many other ways to handle this situation without the need for police intervention. They include use of cash registers, the improvement of the system, incentives to businesses and full legal security.”
“The government is testifying that it does not care about legal security. Its interventions have been subjective either in the demolition of illegal constructions, business permits, or tourist areas. For foreign investors, the situation with hydropower plant concessions has increased insecurity,” he added.
The former finance minister said he was suspicious of INSTAT’s report that the Albanian economy grew by 2.8 percent in the first quarter of this year at a time when government revenue and consumption were sluggish.
