Government To Offset Inflation With Pay-raise

By Ardit Bejko
Tirana – State employees, and those working for state-sponsored institutions, will be paid more after July 1, Prime Minister Sali Berisha said on Monday, June 9. Pensions, unemployment benefits, and the minimum wage for private companies will also increase.
The money needed for the increase will come from a supplementary budget that needs, first, to be approved by the parliament. However, Erion Bra襬 vice-chair of the Socialist parliamentary group, said the raises were too small and called them “unreal” and “ridiculous.”
According to the government’s plan, teachers and nurses will benefit most with a 14 percent raise. Berisha said the 44,000 teachers benefiting from this raise would receive another increase in 2009. Next year’s raise will guarantee the doubling of their salaries by the end of the government’s mandate, he added.
Other employees with medium salaries will see a seven percent raise, while higher salaries will increase by only four percent. Bra襬 however, said the pay raise was smaller than what the 2008 budget report called for, including a 21 percent increase for teachers, a 16 percent pay increase for healthcare system employees, and ten percent raise for those with medium salaries.
The raises will affect pensions differently, depending on where the recipients live. Retired people living in the cities will see a ten percent rise in their pension, increasing the minimum pension in urban areas to ALL 11,257 (about Euro 100). Retired people living in rural areas will receive a 15 percent jump in their pensions. Taking into consideration that the current minimum pension in all areas is ALL 6,300 (Euro 52), the raise consists of ALL 1,000 (Euro 8). Bra襬 though, challenged the data given by Berisha, saying the minimum pension after the increase will be ALL 6,070 (Euro 50).
The 90,000 families who rely on unemployment benefits will see a ten percent increase, while the minimum wage for employees of private businesses will rise to ALL 17,000 (Euro 139). Berisha said the minimum wage increase is a responsibility of every government and not a monetary intervention by the state into the private sector.
“Those who tried to fool the Albanian citizens for several months, saying there would not be any raise, will now start to whine about the government’s alleged intervention into the private sector,” added Berisha.
The opposition has continuously disagreed with the strategy used in increasing wages and pensions. “The most corrupted Premier in Europe launched this ridiculous increase, while he has been robbing retired people for three years now,” Bra襠said. Berisha has expressly violated the law that demanded the indexing of inflation every May 1 for the period 2006-2008, he added.
International financial institutions, like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), urged the government not to initiate raises, saying it would result in a further jump in inflation.
The raises that, according to Berisha, will affect 800,000 Albanian families will seek to offset the high inflation measured during the past months.
“The raise clearly exceeds the burden of inflation among all strata and alleviates the everyday life of Albanian citizens,” said Berisha.
Inflation fell by 0.2 percent in May and reached the 4.2 percent level, INSTAT reports. Berisha said that oscillations in international markets are partly responsible for the increase in prices in Albania.