For teachers of the 1990s, 30.4m euros for two years

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MASHT) has drafted the “Bill for the status of Albanian Education Workers of the Republic of Kosovo from the 1990/91 school year to 1998/99”, which was adopted on May 17th 2018 in Parliament.

According to the finance ministry's financial budget impact assessment, this law will cost Kosovo's budget around 16.7m euros in the period 2019-2020.

However, the GAP Institute has drafted an analysis outlining arguments that the above-mentioned bill has costs higher than 16.7m euros, 30.4m euros, or 16.1m euros higher than the calculations the Ministry of Finance has made.

Agron Demi from the GAP Institute said Kosovo Assembly deputies have in principle adopted this bill with half or wrong information.

In this draft analysis, the GAP Institute has also presented a model with various scenarios of the financial cost of this bill.

The number of employees in this period was 23 thousand, based on the agreement of August.

Blend Hayy from GAP has said the primary goal of this analysis is that the budget burden will be much higher than what was presented in the bill.

Haysa said that the life expectancy of this bill is by 2049 at a total cost of 650m euros.

Fatmir Gashi, deputy minister of finance, said this bill had to sponsor the Ministry of Labour and Social Management rather than the Ministry of Education, since he said it was about pensions.

“We and Finance Minister Bedri Hamza have appealed to the Assembly for increased care of this bill because fixed macro stability is threatened. Every person has contributed at that time in different forms, even though we are not against education, but there are many other categories that we can take revenge on”, he said, adding that he supports the GAP institute's recommendations.

He said the MF respects this education category, but a approach that does not endanger the budget must be found.

Commission for Board and Finance Chairman Lumir Abdixhiku said that on the first day the bill was presented, which has had two costs and a lack of clarity, which creates a poor impression.

“Such a decision has a budgetary impact for the current generation to support social schemes. If we treat education, then health at a rough cost will have to be addressed. The decision is popular and this should not be addressed in this way for education. So this is a political decision and it is good for the position to have more responsibility. So, we need to know the real cost of this bill, is it 16 million or 32 million?

MP Dardan Sejdiu's PSD said that nearly 200 thousand citizens in this period have left work, and all should have a dignified pension.

He said today there are 26 pension schemes in Kosovo, where he claims there is no place in the world.

With this social schematic action and this education bill, we have to move the country to financial bankers. We have had other valuable categories. Over 3 thousand police officers had been forced to quit their jobs, as well as in various courts and administrations. So this issue should be dealt with by pension code involving all of them”, Sejdiu said.

Imer Imer from the Education Union said that no costs are real, neither of the Ministry of Finance nor of the GAP Institute. According to him, the cost is lower. He said it is good to define the financial cost correctly.

We as unions have doubts that every step is being tried by the law. When requested to access the code, even those who have left their jobs and those who have left the country. Even if this is the amount being presented by GAP, it's not high. Its budgetary impact cannot be high. The cost presented by the MF is roughly”, Imer said.

According to the GAP analysis presented today in a debate, it is that according to Article seven of this education bill, the merit pension is divided into two categories: those who have committed more than five years receive equivalent pensions with 75 per cent of the basic salary currently in primary education, and those who have served between 1 and 5 years and receive 65 per cent pay in primary education. Pension is transferred to partners.

While Dukagjin Pupovci professor said that at that time no educator and professor worked without money, perhaps without delay, there may have been some delay in elementary and high schools, but in schools there were no delays in paying realisation in the then period.