Rama: Data transparency essential to prevent Greek experience

TIRANA, Nov. 30 – Lack of government transparency on economic data risks taking Albania into a similar situation to neighboring Greece, opposition Socialist Party leader Edi Rama has warned.
In a meeting in Brussels last weekend with recently resigned Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, who is also president of the Socialist International, Rama said the Albanian government must make full transparency of the country’s economic data so that Albania does not find itself in front of a ‘storm.’ ‘In this context, the experience of the former right-wing Greek government hiding all data should become a lesson for us,” said Rama after attending the Party of European Socialists (PES) convention.
George Papandreou described transparency on the budget and public sector as a wound causing corruption and mostly damaging the middle-class.
“Transparency is about good governance, democracy and social cohesion,” said Papandreu as quoted by the SP press office, underlining the importance of public transparency by publishing all data.
The opposition Socialist Party has continuously expressed concern over the reliability of data published by the country’s state institutions such as INSTAT and the Bank of Albania, describing them as politically oriented.