Unpaid insurance scandal. Government to liquidate debt

12/01/2015 00:00

The scandal of state institutions which have not paid social insurance
to their employees, even after taking it off their salaries, has created
a debate on how the situation can be resolved.

Top Channel learned that one method the Albanian government is taking in consideration is attaching this 100 million USD debt to the other ones that are being paid through a three-year plan.

After coming to power, the Socialist government vowed to pay all hidden debts created by the past government. After a preliminary verification, they declared that the total debt mounted up to 72.6 billion ALL, or 5.2% of the GDP. This debt was created by not paying companies for public works, by not liquidating supply agreements, by not refunding overpaid taxes, not paying expropriation debts or other obligations coming out of court orders.

The government created a three-year plan for liquidating it through the budget, by  taking a 700 million USD loan from the IMF and the World Bank. Confidential sources from the Ministry of Finances say for Top Channel that the 100 million USD debt of unpaid insurance will be liquidated after a thorough verification, because they do not exclude the fact that there could be incorrect data created between the Tax Pffice and the Insurance Institution.

They say that these obligations will be paid without an additional loan, since the 72.6 billion ALL loan that was declared in the beginning was overevaluated. The government’s debt to private operators resulted lower than initially declared.

The real hidden debt figure was a hot topic between the government and the opposition, who said that the real debt was lower and the government intentionally made it look bigger.

But besides political debates and the fact that the government will not need to increase the debt anymore, the unpaid insurance remains a huge scandal which makes responsible all the institutions that tolerated it not only for public enterprises, but also for private companies, especially the Tax Office and the Insurance Institution.

Top Channel