Prime Minister Edi Rama held a meeting with pensioners in the city of Fier this Tuesday. In his speech, Rama accused the companies that do not declare the real salary of the employees, calling them robbers of the pension fund. He announced the imminent launch of a campaign against construction companies that hide the real wages of workers, comparing it to the campaign against those who did not pay electricity in 2013.

“Our problem is to reflect the real salary increase in the private sector. We cannot accept that a construction company declares salaries from 500 to 600 thousand old lek, because we know that such salaries do not exist in these companies. For this reason we will intervene! We have made it clear to companies and employers that this is robbery. We will go after all the companies to get pensioners their fair share, just as we went after those who got their energy without paying for it. Half of the people, including pensioners, who were the most regular energy payers, paid for the other half as well. This cannot work anymore,” said Rama.

The Prime Minister also talked about the minimum pension of 70 thousand lek and whether it is enough to ensure a living. Rama emphasized that the social pension is for survival and added that its beneficiaries are those who have never worked.

“The minimum pension is a social pension that we established with the reform of 2014. From 1990 to 2014, there was a significant number of pensioners who did not receive any money. With 70,000 lek, you can’t live, but survive. How do you live with no pension? We decided that no elderly person in Albania would be without a pension and we established the social pension for people who have not worked a day,” added Rama.