Klodian Tomorri
Petrit Malaj was placed at the head of the Ministry of Finance as a direct subordinate of Belinda Balluku. Without any contribution to public life, he was catapulted first to the head of AKBN and then as head of state finance. But as time and SPAK have clearly proven, Bela's actions have terrible costs in the end.
Two years ago, precisely on February 15, 2024, the Parliament approved a draft law that restored sports betting in Albania, although this time in an online version. In the approved law, the Parliament charged the Council of Ministers, and specifically the Ministry of Finance, to issue all necessary sub-legal acts within 6 months of the adoption of the law.
But the law remained just a piece of paper. Six months passed and the bylaws were not approved. A year passed after them and more than two years have already passed. In two years, the Ministry of Finance has approved only 3 of the 11 necessary legal acts that would make the law on opening betting applicable.
To openly violate a law of the Assembly from the position of a government official requires two qualities above all. A surplus of courage and a deficit of brains. And yet the Minister of Finance is a recidivist. The betting law is not the only one he refuses to implement. The revaluation law is also being sabotaged in the same way.
Although the law, which allows citizens to revalue properties with reduced taxes, was approved in December along with the fiscal package, it has not yet entered into force. The reason is again the same. The Ministry of Finance refuses to issue the necessary instructions and sub-legal acts.
For Albanian citizens, who have seen and heard of government officials stealing hundreds of millions of euros, negligence in issuing certain instructions may seem like tabloid news. But is negligence really what is forcing the Minister of Finance to break the law and face Parliament?
When it sent the law on the reopening of betting to the Parliament for approval, the Ministry of Finance itself predicted that the return of betting would bring at least 20 million euros per year to the state budget. Although this is a conservative figure, the calculations are still ruthless. In two years, Albanian citizens have lost, according to the Ministry of Finance itself, at least 40 million euros from Petrit Malaj's "negligence".
This is money that is going directly into the pockets of organized crime, which today conducts illegal betting activities. And as has already been proven by several investigations by the prosecution and SPAK, betting gangs allocate a lot of money to maintain their illegal kingdom.
It is now clear to everyone that the entry into force of the betting law is being hindered by organized crime, which profits much more when gambling is illegal due to non-payment of taxes. This casts a strong shadow of suspicion over the Ministry of Finance and its head.
And if one doubt is not enough, two of them make a proof. The delay of the other law, the one on revaluation, also has a huge financial damage from behind and a narrow group of beneficiaries. These are the construction oligarchy.
For two years now, the real estate market has been almost completely blocked in the resale segment. This is because citizens who had plans to sell properties have withdrawn them from the market pending revaluation. But there is one category that benefits from the shrinking supply in the market. These are builders, who sell property for the first time, where the transaction is not caught by capital gains tax.
With citizens' properties off the market, builders sell without competition and keep prices artificially high. Those who pay are of course the citizens. In short, blocking the betting law and the revaluation law moves hundreds of millions of euros into the market, directing them from the pockets of citizens to a small handful of bandits and builders.
This falls into what is defined as sophisticated corruption, where there is no need to risk signing risky documents. In fact, in this case the money comes precisely for doing nothing. Or for inspecting cheese dairies for tax coupons.
Editorial
