Berisha: Our stance is no mercy and zero tolerance towards organized crime and drug traffickers

One of the questions from citizens following Berisha's conversation on social media was about the construction situation in Albania. "Our stance is no tolerance and zero tolerance towards organized crime and drug lords," said the Democratic leader.

Berisha: Thank you for the question.

The truth is today that what should be the promoter of our economy and the generator of development, namely production, has been in progressive decline for 3 years in a row.

A decline that has led to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and a significant deepening of the trade deficit, that is, exports versus imports.

It is true that today there are two main sectors, but these two sectors de facto do not benefit or help the majority of Albanians, but rather they punish the majority of Albanians.

Let me briefly explain this.

Edi Rama claims that 10 million tourists come to Albania every year. But 10 million tourists have 6 million nights of sleep recorded. So it turns out that they have slept in Albania for half the night and this is informality.

These 10 million tourists, in total sales of restaurants, hotels, etc., have generated around 160 million euros in revenue in euros.

Of these 160 million euros per year, their VAT is about 8 million euros. Albanian citizens have benefited from 8 million euros in taxes from tourism.

Can you imagine for a moment? Thousands of hotels, 100,000 tourist beds in hotels and AirBnB, generating a total tax revenue of 8 million euros for Albanians.

Meanwhile, Albanian citizens spend 430 million euros every year on the development of the tourist infrastructure of Edi Rama's clientele.

The budget money used for the construction of roads, water supply, electricity, etc. for tourist resorts is 430 million euros per year.

So, every Albanian citizen pays 230 euros per year in tourist taxes and earns 4 euros per year.

Who wins? Of course they win, the owners of hotels, resorts, AirBnB win, but these are not the majority, these are the real minority. These are at most a few tens of thousands. Meanwhile, the majority is millions.

Let's take a look at construction. What happens to construction?

I have asked and will ask the question several times: who benefits from the towers of Tirana, monuments to drugs and corruption. The prices in these towers per square meter are stratospheric, they are absolutely much more expensive than in Brussels, Vienna and a series of other Western cities.

Of course, construction workers are employed in these buildings, but Albanians cannot buy them. These are forbidden apples. To buy an apartment in these, an Albanian citizen must work for 104 years.

What is our stance? The one that has been, no towers.

Two, zero tolerance towards organized crime. The Albanian economy does not need a single penny of narco-euro.

Narcoeuros are toxic to the Albanian economy and that of any other country.

Where will we base it? We will base it on free initiative. We will base it on a fiscal system that gives greater breathing space to free initiative.

We will base it on the lowest fiscal burden for the business.

We will base it on guaranteeing competition and fair competition.

We will base it on a deregulatory framework that eases bureaucracy, but also corruption towards businesses.

So, we will do everything to ensure that the real engine of economic development is production.

We will create an export support fund.

We will remove taxes on imports, on goods that are exported.

The price of energy will drop to 6 lek for businesses from 18 lek today.

The social security burden will be halved.

The 9 percent flat tax will be reinstated.

So, we will ignite, restart the business engines and transform business into the main promoter of Albania's development.