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The MAJFT Movement Meet Representatives Of The Albanian Government

The MJAFT movement had a meeting on February 13 with representatives of the Albanian Government, on latter�s request. The meeting was set up after the requests of the MJAFT movement made clear in the previous protests. The Government was represented in the meeting by the Minister for State Coordination Mr. Marko Bello, and the director of Power and Energy Company Andis Harasani. MJAFT laid out some requests that had to do with Albanian citizen pockets like KESH, ALBTELECOM, etc. MJAFT has also given the representatives a handout with the requests and their motivations.

Among other things in the handout you could read: Worried by the increase of the prices in different and also vital services our movement has identified and visible these problems before they became a fountain of further poverty.

The problem of electric and phone bills

The increase in the electric bills is an important fact in the increase of the Albanian living costs and especially the poor families or those with social problems. Because of this the MJAFT movement requested that the government:

Increase the level of power in the Albanian homes up to 220-300Kw.
Decrease the prices of phone lines to the levels of December 2003.

Being that we do not believe the facts that the increases came all as a result of damages in both these service institutions and also being sure that some of them were prey of the bad management we request the Government:

To make public the financial operations of KESH and ALBTELECOM.
To make public the analysis of the costs of the services that these companies offer.
We believe that it is the states duty to guaranty the well being of the rights of the citizens from some monopolist companies, especially when they are Government property.

For these reasons we ask:

The rewriting of the contracts with KESH and ALBTELECOM in a way that the people have a way to defend themselves against frauds. The rewriting should be done in the presence of various citizen groups.
KESH has to interrupt the general condemns on its clients.
The power got to be executed only to those consumers who do not pay the bills regularly.
ALBTELECOM should come up with more detailed bills and not only the total sum, in this way eliminating any possible abuses in the billing process.
The general power cutting practice of the KESH in several zones is unfair to the regular consumers who actually pay for all the electricity they get. But it is also economically destructive to the businesses in the area.

The bread issue

While the headlines of the journals have been talking only about the increase of the bread prices in the bakeries, another increase has popped up. We are talking about the increase of the costs of the homemade bread fro those people who can not permit themselves to buy it in the stores. We are also talking about the main food in the Albanian tables.

According to the information that we have half of the flour produced in the country is not sold to the bakeries but to the families, especially in the poor rural zones. Being that most of the bread-flour comes form the import and the importers having raised up the prices we came up with a calculation that showed that it cost 33% more to an Albanian to fill up his stomach only with bread this year, double the percentage of last year.

In the mean time referring to the daily Albanian journals and especially �Biznesi�, we see that 3-4 companies that import grain have raised their prices in an artificial way. In the European Market the grain prices have gone up only 30% mine while in the Port of Durres 60%. These facts make us think, quoting the Governor of the Albanian Bank, that these companies are not playing a fair game and might have also committed a felony.

On behalf of these reasons we ask:

1. The creation of an investigative group to see if these companies are really going against the law and if so have their businesses restrained and billed
2. Have the State Reserves fill up the bakeries needs this way saving themselves from total bankruptcy.
There was a will of collaboration seen in the reactions of the representatives. The MJAFT requests of better conditions in the power lines were taken into serious consideration and the director promised this time to undertake a real serious mission that would bring changes within the time table set up by the MJAFT movement. Both sides came to point tat they decided that they had to set up other meetings to talk about the phone bill prices and bread prices.

The MJAFT movement comes in front of the citizens again with the solemn promise that it will be their spokesman and their defender according to problems of immediate needs. Also the Mjaft movement wishes that the government takes these problems into real consideration because they are a fruit of citizen sensitizing. And this is what would bring in a step by step and consistent and unstoppable citizen movement.

As a result of the MJAFT Movement! pressure during this meeting, KESH published today (17.02.04) the The Audit Report in PDF.