120 ex-Deputees are continuing to receive large wages from the dysfunctional assembly

Kosovo Parliament Secretary Ismet Krasniqi has confirmed to Kosovo Prees that under the Law on Rights and responsibilities of the Parliamentary Parliamentary and Rules, the co-Deputes of the Assembly's sixth legislature are receiving wages, and that right will be granted by August 2020.

If some of them are not re-elected to the next legislature, salaries will receive by August 27, 2020”, Krasniqi says.

Representatives of civil society say that receiving large salaries from the disfunctional assembly shows that MPs as lawmakers have cared only for themselves, while thousands of citizens who are left without jobs in the private sector have not established legal grounds for their state care.

Executive director in the organisation “Arise”, Arton Demhasaj says of Kosova Prees, that these salaries are legally defined, but for this there are pro and counter arguments.

Demhasaj has demanded that, despite Kosovo's having an unaffordable budget, this issue had to be fixed for state administration employees and for those in the private sector who have no tax contributions at all, even though they are contributing to pay taxes.

The pro argument is that if an individual was an MP and he was automatically left out, now the deputy and the minister can go to work everywhere? That's why it's been given this amount of investment time for a year... So it's different this situation of these (former-deputes) with civil servants who have a deal with a contract to perform a certain job, and when the contract is concluded, they don't enjoy insurance. Or in the private sector, there are no non-profits that remove, because the private sector is regulated based on free market economy. It's the company owner who decides and pays what the contract is. Can't the state pay in the private sector... Kosovo has no social policy and this is the main problem, which in case a private sector worker remains out of work, the state has helped me for a certain time until it finds its place of employment or even the state finds its place of employment”, Demhay claims.

While, Agnes Haxhiu of the Kosovo Democratic Institute(KDI) says that based on the law on the rights and responsibilities of the MP, who has been drafted and adopted somewhere in 2011, there is a legal provision provided to each MP who has completed at least one mandate or those of the former legislature, it enjoys the right to pay compensation while working as an MP for a period of 12 months or a year, but that can be prohibited earlier if the MP has in question entered from another financial source, whether in public or in the private sector.

At this moment all MPs from the moment of distribution of the Parliament if they haven't found another job or have no further access from any other financial source theyish-deputes enjoy their basic salary until a year... The former MPs, who have been part of the sixth legislature, if they happen to be re-elected to the seventh legislature at the moment of verifying their mandates and sworn-in as deputy, then withdraw from the part of MPs who enjoy the base wage of the transitional phase. Those who have failed to be re-elected as deputies have the right to pay realisation for a period of one year, or until the moment of finding another financial source, whether in the private sector or in public institutions”, Haxhiu said.

MPs for a month receive 240 thousand euros. Also, wages are continuing to be received by the incumbent prime minister, ministers, deputy ministers, political advisers, privileges for them will be similar to former MPs.

While, the assembly, which has been distributed on August 22nd, is expected to be dedicated after the results are certified.