Ismaili: Zemaj's scandalous behavior for drugs returns crime and corruption to health

At a news conference, Ismaili has said this act returns crime to health, serves several individuals, and makes people poor.

He has demanded that he not be manipulated and Minister Zemaj does not line up with crime, corruption and robbery in health.

Ismaili's full statement:

I am here today, with great concern, to raise my voice on a subject that is of all people, regardless of political beliefs.

I'm here for a shocking case that should mobilise us all.

Minister Armenmen Zemaj yesterday has given space to crime and corruption in health, abolishing Administrative Guide for the regulation and unification of the drug price.

With that decision, he has hit one of the biggest reforms in health history and has re-legified crime.

Following public pressure, Zemaj has abolished his decision today, establishing a new team to change this directive, which was drafted with international experts and under the supervision of the World Health Organisation.

The creation of a new team is only a purchase of time, which can be used by companies for drug abuse.

This manipulation will cost our citizens who will continue to buy drugs at prices more expensive than citizens of surrounding countries.

The annulment once, and the suspension now, of the instruction that regulates and lowers the prices of drugs, is the victory of the interests of criminal groups that want to get rich at the expense of citizens' health.

It's going back to health, it's citizen poverty, and it's reconciliation that taxpayers' money isn't invested, it's misuse.

Dear citizens,

One of the biggest obstacles to health development has been massive corruption in the purchase of drugs, which has enriched some but depleted the people.

For the next 20 years, Kosovo has bought over 6m euros worth of hospital medicine within the year, while citizens have been financially damaged by spending about 10m euros more per medicine per year on drugs.

For a long time, public money has been mismanaged. Bars that could have been bought at 3 euros have been bought at 30 euros.

For a long time, millions of euros have been given to companies, which have not been aimed at providing quality products at cheaper prices, but at overnight enrichment and receiving million contracts.

This criminal network has been and still remains a threat to the health sector and the plundering of public money.

If our tax money doesn't go into investing and improving the health sector, but in the pockets of individuals and certain companies, then we're doomed to have the worst health, the stronger criminal network.

If there is no stopping the path to corruption, there will be no developed health, better professional services, new equipment and adequate medicine in hospitals.

That was my conviction while I was a minister of health, and on this vision I have fought for two years a very difficult battle to sign Administrative Guide that regulates and lowers drug prices.

I worked without stopping, along with the World Health Organization, to make it a legal basis for our citizens not to pay multiple higher prices for the same drugs.

For 20 years, our citizens have purchased more expensive medicines in Kosovo's drugs than citizens in Macedonia and Albania.

For 20 years, our citizens have purchased medicine at a different price - and in the evening - when they were in trouble at a different price.

At another price in the village, at another price in town.

At different prices in different neighborhoods.

The Administrative Guide, which I signed in 2019, which Minister Zemaj cancelled yesterday and suspended today for buying time, prevented drug abuse by preventing anyone offering higher prices than in the market and setting the rule to lower and level prices at all Kosovo drugs.

Before I signed this Guide, Kosovo and Belarus were the only countries in Europe that did not have the prices of drugs adjusted.

So we were black on the map of Europe.

This instruction was contrary to the interest of a few, but in the interest of many.

This directive that helped stop corruption at the Ministry of Health has saved the citizens' pocket and restored the dignity of our pharmacists.

Therefore, the foreign minister's behaviour to this leadership is a victory of criminal networks and interest groups.

I request from the Government that urgently sustain Administrative Guides signed in 2019 that there be no permission to use pandemic to support crime.

It is a welcome response from citizens and media, nongovernmental organisations and professional Comedies.

It is in the interest of citizens to continue this reaction until the reflection of the Ministry of Zemaj not to allow the poverty of citizens by buying medicines at multiple more expensive prices.