The leader of the Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, held a conversation with the residents of Vaqarr. The leader of the Democrat Party said that during the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama, the village has experienced the most serious consequences.
He blamed the territorial reform, which, according to Berisha, dealt a severe blow to local government.
"I am pleased to meet you today to present our program. What do we intend and what do we solemnly pledge to you that we will do during the next 4 years. If we look at these 12 years of Edi Rama, the Albanian village is the one that experienced and experienced the most serious consequences of this regime. These extremely serious consequences began with the so-called local government reform, where you lost the services that were provided in the municipality and all of this left you, without the services you deserve. It created irresponsible groups appointed and not elected by you, who were not accountable to anyone except their own pockets. With the so-called territorial reform, it dealt a very serious blow to local government, the government of citizens, which had very important missions for the development of the areas," said Berisha.
Berisha further stated that "it is unimaginable that wherever I go, villagers tell me that not a single kilometer of road has been paved in our area."
"It is an ignorance, a total exclusion, while you, all of you without exception, in every glass of water you drink, in every bite you eat, pay the 20% VAT tax, you paid it in the store when you bought it. So, your taxes were not returned to you a single penny. What is our program? Our program is money to the citizen. Very simple. We will return the money to the citizen and I guarantee that our project for the village will continue with great intensity. But, as you have probably heard, we start from what we call, the compassionate heart. We start with those who are in misery, in extreme poverty. We start with those who receive, as you said here, 70-80-100 thousand lek, even though they have spent their whole lives working. And we have that every Albanian, in the village or in the city, wherever they are, will receive the living minimum of 200 euros per capita. Whatever the pension in the village is under 200 euros, it will "It will be 200 euros and this will happen in the first 3 months of our government," Berisha declared.
"Not only that, but there will be a consumer card that will allow him to get back 20% of the VAT on the expenses he makes on basic foods and goods he buys. I assure you that the sale in Albanian markets of any medicine, whether for humans, for the soil, or for livestock, that is not traded in two EU countries, will be prohibited and severely punished."
We will start from some basic things that give us security, dignity. That if you treat another person, who has dedicated his life to work and you tell him, take 16 million euros for 760 thousand pensioners, you mock them cynically. But why do others have where to get it and you have nowhere to get it. Why does the Prime Minister of Kosovo give 100 million euros for pensioners and has half of Albania's pensioners and half of Albania's budget. What happened? In 2013, the average pension in Albania was 143 thousand lek. The average pension in Montenegro was 138 thousand lek. Today the average pension in Montenegro is 450 thousand lek.
"But how did they grow, how did this come about? Of course, the Prime Minister of Montenegro took money from the budget and put it for pensioners. He didn't tell them that this is the fund and stick with it. No one does this, we didn't do it. You are a witness. We came, we found the minimum pension in the village to be 36 thousand lek. We increased it to 82 thousand lek, we took it from the budget and put it in the pension fund. And we will take it again and put it in the pension fund. What else happens to you? Subsidies. Every state, absolutely every state subsidizes the farmer, gives him cash for what he plants, what he harvests, for the livestock he breeds, for the seedlings he plants ," added the democratic leader.
"And no country loses from this. No. They go back into production, into welfare, they go back to families, to society."
This subsidy he just made, opened the borders for Serbia with the 'Open Balkans' because he said the truck waits so much, nonsense that is. And the goods of Sumadija, the products of Banat, which have at least 8 times more subsidies than Albania, are flooding into Albania. Of course, the Albanian farmer with a farmer who is subsidized 8 times more, whoever he is, cannot afford it. He gets it at a much higher price. He did the other thing too. He imposed an asymmetric VAT on the collectors so that they would buy imported products and not domestic ones. And now, these were causing thousands of quintals and tons of domestic goods to rot and the farmer to stop planting, to leave, to go bankrupt. Thousands of farms, thousands of greenhouses. Agricultural production has fallen. What are we going to do? This is our first year here, and I promise you that we will raise the subsidy for you to the level of Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia, a level that is 5 times greater than today. We will subsidize every sapling you plant.
We will subsidize every cow, sheep, or goat. We will subsidize every unit of production that you get from your land. The tax for collectors ends, it will be symmetrical both in sales and purchases, which means you will get back the VAT on sales and the wholesalers will not get it. You will get it because it is yours. So this is a completely different system. For us, there is no developed Albania without a developed village. There is no developed Albania with an abandoned village. There is no more fertile land than the land of Albania, it is one of the best that exists. Others turn desert into fertile land. These turn fertile land into desert. This is the truth", concluded Berisha.