TIRANA TIMES EDITORIAL
Tirana, Mar. 29 – The electoral campaign hasn’t even gone in full swing yet, with elections still three months away, but Albania’s politicians are already back on the campaign trail, up to their old tricks: making promises they know they can’t deliver, or worse, promising things that if they deliver will end up hurting the country in the long run – passing the problem to future leaders and generations.
The first trend is not new, and it relates to promises of new jobs, which depending on the party making the promise vary from 100,000 to 150,000 in the next four years. These numbers are so ridiculously high, it seems the people making them are out of touch with reality or simply lying through their teeth. And the second is more likely.
According to official data, only a net of 10,000 new job were opened in the last two years. And looking at the current economic crisis, unless whoever is in power following the elections performs miracles, it is unlikely the trend will change change drastically to a 10 or 15 fold increase. In fact, employment numbers have gone up and down over the past decade, seeing a decline at times, even when the global economy was in much better shape.
The second trend relates to promising things that simply are not possible to deliver without hurting the country in the long term, increasing the deficit and public debt to unmanageable levels. (One only needs to look south of the border to Greece to see where that leads, only in Albania it would be far worse.)
Prime Minister Sali Berisha of the governing Democratic Party and Edi Rama of the main opposition Socialist Party have been holding meetings across the country, with the economy at the focus of discussion and promises. Regardless of who is doing the promising, it appears most Albanians will end up paying less in taxes — which is helpful just ahead of the elections.
This week’s top political headlines involved the government’s populist moves to cut taxes to zero for anyone making under 30,000 leks (about 220 euros) per month. The government is cutting a slew of other taxes related to agriculture and importing used vehicles. It is doing so without replacing this income by raising taxes elsewhere, so it will result in an increased deficit.
Analysts note that such lower taxes will mean 130 million euros less for the state budget approved at the end of the year, which will only increase the deficit.
At the same time the government says it will keep increasing wages in the public sector and improve public services, which can only be done by further increasing the deficit.
The Socialists, on the other hand, say the center-right government is stealing their program and add they were the ones to first propose cutting taxes on the poor, but want to tax the rich instead, changing Albania’s flat tax system to a progressive one. It’s not known whether the Socialist program will work if implemented, but it is up for debate. The application of the flat tax in Albania has been lauded by some international experts as a success story in attracting investors.
In another area, the Socialists proposal to drastically change the health system might be a pipedream with Albania’s current means.
The government claims it has achieved higher standards in the last eight years, but if you have ever had a chance to go to an Albanian hospital you will know that it’s best go armed with envelopes with cash, or the care you will get might be suspect. The standards of buildings and equipment are very poor in many public hospitals.
Corruption is prevalent and the quality of care remains bad compared to EU standards, most analysts agree.
Changing such practices without dramatically increasing salaries for doctors and nurses as well as other hospital workers, in addition to improving the quality of public hospitals, is impossible. At the end of the day, the cash has to come from the somewhere. And while promises might be free, making good on them is not.
