Meta: Only the removal of the Criminal Organization increases revenues and brings them to citizens

The President of the Freedom Party, Ilir Meta, has reacted on Facebook, highlighting the important economic and financial problems that Albania is facing.

He expressed concern about the low level of tax revenues in the country and conducted an in-depth analysis of the tax collection system.

According to him, Albania has a poor performance in revenue collection, ranking far behind other countries in the region.

Meta emphasized that increasing income is necessary to cover expenses for education, healthcare, and pensions.

He added that this process can be aided by improving performance in tax collection and eliminating corruption that affects the fiscal system.

Full reaction:

Only the removal of the Criminal Organization increases revenues and brings them to the citizens.

Albania's tax revenue level continues to be the most scandalous in our region.

The tax revenue ratio, at 19% of Gross Domestic Product, is about 5% below the average of Western Balkan countries.

Despite the fact that tax rates on major taxes are generally in line with those of countries in the region, the performance gap indicates significant shortcomings in the tax base, tax differentiations and exemptions, as well as lack of performance due to corruption and lack of professionalism.

Albania has the lowest revenue collection efficiency ratio in the region, as a result of numerous thresholds and exemptions that encourage under-reporting and weaken the implementation of the fiscal system.

Albania has a collection efficiency ratio of 0.6, while Kosovo has it above 0.85.

Strengthening tax administration, reducing inequality in the tax treatment of certain sectors of the economy, and reducing informality would help raise tax collection towards the European Union average.

Increasing revenues is necessary to respond to increasing spending pressures on education, health, pensions and social care.

The report's analysis estimates a cumulative increase in public spending needs of around 7% of GDP in the coming years.

It is also necessary and there is room for improving the composition and quality of public spending.

More funds should be directed towards public education, especially at the secondary and higher education levels, as well as healthcare spending.

Expenditures for 1 secondary education student are estimated at 1000 USD according to purchasing power parity, while the average for emerging and developing European countries, including Albania, is around 4200 USD or 4.2 times higher per person.

Expenditures per higher education student are estimated at 1800 USD according to purchasing power parity, while the average expenditure in emerging and developing European countries is around 4800 USD per person, or around 2.7 times higher.

The number of beds per 1,000 inhabitants in Albania is estimated to be 2 times lower than the average of emerging and developing European countries.

The number of doctors per 1,000 inhabitants in Albania is estimated to be on average two times lower than the average of emerging and developing European countries.

The number of nurses per 1,000 inhabitants in Albania is estimated to be 1.5 times lower than the average of emerging and developing European countries.

The coverage and extent of social assistance for the poor in Albania is behind the comparable standard with other countries and could be further increased through the reprioritization of spending, a proposal that the Freedom Party presented with its amendments in Parliament, which were defeated by the "Rebirth" of "tunnels" with no light at the end for the 50% of the population living on the verge of absolute poverty.

Meanwhile, the level of income in relation to GDP remains at 28%, compared to 41-42% in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro.

This difference of 13-14% means 3.2 billion euros in a year or almost 13 billion euros in a mandate that are stolen by the ruling Criminal Organization without even entering the state budget.

Here is the money for increasing pensions, salaries, and funding education with 5% of GDP, health, agriculture, and supporting domestic production and exports.

In addition to the extraordinary reserves from the fight against corruption in public investments and the return of transparent procurements based on real costs and not tripled or tenfolded, as former Deputy Prime Minister Ahmetaj also demonstrated to us.

So, there is all the money you want, but there should be no criminal organization in the country's governance, nor justice that does not look at its "intellectual crimes."