TIRANA TIMES
TIRANA, Aug. 12 – Albania’s main opposition Socialist Party said this week the cost of living has increased dramatically in Albania, and accused the government of mishandling economic policy.
The comments were made by Ilir Beqja, a Socialist lawmaker, who also said the Institute of Statistics had gotten its data wrong on purpose to hide increased cost of living.
Two days ago, Instat, the official entity in charge of keeping track of various data in Albania, reviewed all data for inflation since the end of last year, which for several months shows to be 0.7 percentage points higher than it was initially reported.
The Institute is often accused by the opposition of hiding the real data. However, it explained that the review was announced at the end of last year to include the effect of changing health care fees for uninsured persons, and increases in utility bills.
But the Socialists say that the data has been forged and cannot hide the fact that life is now very expensive for Albanians.
Average inflation in the first seven months, Beqja said, is at 3.7 percent, while compared with a year ago, fruits and vegetables are 10 percent more expensive. He added that the opposition is also concerned by the increase in the cost of living, because of the increased price of bread, which according to him is due to the fact that the market for wheat flour is controlled by monopolies related to the government.
