Albania is facing an unprecedented phenomenon, the paralysis of public spending. Although the state budget should have been fully executed by December 31, Kapitali has learned that the 2025 budget continues to have a budget surplus even today, which is January 5, 2026. For last year, the government had programmed a budget deficit of 61.6 billion lek or about 640 million euros.
The arrests of the directors of the state's most important spending institutions appear to have completely paralyzed the execution of the state budget. According to the law, the government has until January 31 to execute the 2025 budget expenditures.
But with the problems in the ARA, AKSH and other institutions that carry the main weight in public spending, it seems that budget execution will be a major challenge. In particular, the National Agency for the Information Society appears to have been completely paralyzed for a long time now.
Almost throughout last year, AKSHI was blocked from tender complaints at the Public Procurement Commission, due to clashes with Ermal Beqiri and Gerond Meçes.
This situation could not be completely unblocked even by the alleged hostage-taking of Meça by Beqiri's group, while since the middle of last month, the director of AKSHI, Mirlinda Karçanaj, was placed under house arrest as a participant in the structured criminal group that stole AKSHI tenders.
To avoid budget collapse due to non-implementation of expenditures, the government adopted a decision that allows the Ministry of Finance to transfer any unexecuted expenditures to the Pensioners' Fund.
This fund will apparently be the lifeboat to get the government out of its inability to execute public spending, while the chaos in the management of public money harms the economy.
Editorial
