Finance Minister Iron Murati has acknowledged that increasing the cost of living in Kosovo is a problem, but has said inflation factors are global developments, citing the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Persian Gulf.
Murati made these statements during the presentation of the Project on Budget Divisions for 2027 in response to the criticism of Kosovo Democratic Party MP Mergim Lushtaku, who raised concerns about inflation and its impact on the welfare of citizens.
As far as inflation is concerned, it is certainly a problem to increase the cost of living in Kosovo, as in all other countries of the world. This has two causes, originally, was the war in Ukraine, which affected the global shock of energy prices, but also food prices, and now we have the new wave coming from the conflict in the Persian Gulf, Murati said.
Before the minister’s response, MP Lushtaku criticised the Government for planning and realising capital investments, saying that, despite the planned large sums, their execution has remained low.
He referred to a GAP Institute report for the period 2021-2024, under which more than a billion euros have not been spent on planned investments.
In some reports, such as the GAP report 2021-2024, over 1 billion euros have not been spent on planned investments. This directly affects citizens, means fewer roads, fewer bridges, unbuilt schools, unbuilt centers, and many projects that facilitate the lives of citizens. Of course, this affects both the family economy and the dearness of civic life, Lushtaku said.
He stressed that increasing the nominal value of the budget does not necessarily imply increased citizens’ welfare, citing even inflation figures.
The big budget number, or budget in large numbers, does not mean that it is the best welfare, because inflation is too high. In several different reports, we have different figures. For example, the case is 7.8% inflation, while others are up to 7.1% by October 2026. The nominal projections with real ones are that growth somewhere has picked up about 1%, because the money you had in 2026 hasn’t been spent, and it’s probably lost in years and days of years, he said.
In response to criticism of the execution of capital investments, Murati said it is a recurring problem over the years and is not linked solely to current governance.
As far as the execution of capital projects is concerned, it’s a chronic situation, it’s not just this year, or some of the previous years, that I remember, and that everyone who worked in the public sector, and that’s been dealing with the issue of public finance, knows that the execution of projects has stalled. Even in 2010, 2011 and 2012, and so on, the execution has always been under budget, Murati said.
He cited as contributing factors the implementing capacities of ministries and municipalities, as well as procedures that, according to him, often cannot be predicted precisely during budget planning.
However, the minister said that the execution of capital investments improves the train.
As for the issue of executing capital investments, I can say it’s improving the train, he said.
Source Layer: Dukeagini