TIRANA, July 21 – As the country’s national debt surpassed the trillion lek mark, the opposition Democratic Party has accused the Socialist-led government of dangerously increasing the national debt.
Officials said Monday the country’s national debt had just surpassed the figure of 1 trillion leks for the first time ever. But the data also showed that compared to last year when it had reached 70 percent of the GDP, the debt has now fallen to 69 percent of GDP.
The government said the opposition was playing with the numbers and added the national debt was under control and the government was working hard to lower it.
The Ministry of Finance said in a statement that it was the opposition Democratic Party’s government that took big loans starting in 2008. They took the national debt above the 60 percent of the GDP level as set in law, according to the ministry.
The statement said the Democrats refused to listen to the international community to keep the debt under control at that time.
The Democratic Party government ended the agreement with the IMF which significantly reduced its presence in the country. The IMF is now back under the Socialist-led government, but the country’s economic performance has been lackluster as the regional crisis drags on.
The Albanian government said it had to take on more debt to make delayed payments to businesses that had done public work. It has pledged to bring the debt back to its previous levels of under 60 percent of GDP over the next three years.
“The public debt will gradually fall as a result of those reforms that the previous government had not courage to undertake. The reforms of pensions, of the energy sector, property, improvement of the revenue administration are all reforms that would take in the reduction of the fiscal risks and of the public debt and not the fall of the public expenditure,” said a statement of the Ministry of Finance.
