"Veliaj approved the 2024 draft budget in 6 minutes"/ Teliti: It does not reflect the needs of the capital

2023-12-24 11:50:00, Aktualitet CNA

"Veliaj approved the 2024 draft budget in 6 minutes"/ Teliti: It does

Dorian Teliti

The chairman of the Tirana Municipal Council for the DP, Dorian Teliti, in a statement to the media, denounced the lack of transparency in the Tirana Municipality regarding citizens' money.

Teliti said that in an unjustified, unfair manner and in abuse of the power of the board, the socialist majority led by the mayor, approved within 6 minutes, without any discussion and without any debate, the next year's budget and closed the meeting of the Municipal Council , thus competing worthily with the parliamentary record of budget approval.

According to him, the reason for passing the bill in such a way was that the next year's draft budget did not reflect the needs of the capital.

Full statement:

I believe you remember the statements of the last four years of the Mayor of Tirana Erion Veliaj, where he never missed an opportunity to say "where is the opposition in the municipal council". I believe you remember his public statements where he stated that he would like to have the opposition in the municipal council to discuss and debate the strategies, objectives and budget of the capital municipality. Well, they express themselves differently and behave differently. Yesterday, the opposition was in the council hall with the best intention to debate the draft budget for the coming year 2024, but faced an unprecedented case in the history of the last three decades of the work of the municipal council, where, in an unjustified manner, unfairly and in abuse of the power of the board, the socialist majority led by the mayor, approved within 6 minutes, without any discussion and without any debate, the next year's budget and closed the meeting of the municipal council, thus competing decently with the parliamentary record of approval of the budget.

Why didn't they like the debate? Why didn't they like discussions? Why didn't they want transparency for citizens' money? The reasons are simple, the draft budget for next year did not reflect the needs of the capital, did not provide answers to challenges and solutions to people's problems. The draft budget of the Municipality of Tirana for next year does not support local entrepreneurship, as there was no fiscal relief for them. The draft budget of the municipality for the next year does not have any policy supporting subsidy for the farmer of Tirana, unlike what Veliaj promised in the campaign. The draft budget of the municipality for next year does not support young families, on the contrary, it provided for an increase in food quotas for feeding children in kindergartens and kindergartens.

The project budget of the municipality for the next year does not include the sustainable local development and the huge infrastructural and environmental challenges. The project budget of the municipality for the coming year is not based on the sound principles of financial management, as it increases even further the personnel and operating expenses, all of this at the expense of the investments so necessary for the capital. Therefore, the democratic councilors in the municipal council proposed a series of necessary amendments to be implemented in the municipal budget, starting from the reduction of the property tax and the impact tax on the infrastructure, the cancellation of the temporary tax for the educational infrastructure, the reduction of cleaning, parking and public space fees.

We also proposed the reduction of the total number of employees, the significant reduction of unnecessary operating expenses of municipal structures and the cancellation of any expenses related to the phantom process of waste incineration. Although we did not have the opportunity to discuss these amendments, as the majority cards close the meeting within a few minutes, the opposition councilors will not stop their fight to protect the interests of the citizens and the use of their tax money. in those zeros that really go towards improving their lives./ CNA