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Budget planning: Annual revenue of 20 million Euros from preliminary fines
Edi Rama's government does not impose fines only when it finds violations of the law; it has planned them as a separate item of preliminary revenues in the annual budget.
Sources within the Ministry of Finance confirm to "Pamphlet" that the 2025 draft budget foresees a de facto supplementary "tax", worth around 20 million euros, which is expected to come from mandatory fines on citizens and businesses.
How the budget law is violated
The law stipulates that fines can be recorded as budget revenue only after their form becomes final – either with the acceptance by the punished person, or by a court decision. According to an informal order of the prime minister (“Babloku”), this principle is bypassed: the value of fines is planned in advance and approved each year, being distributed as a target to ministries, agencies, municipalities and subordinate directorates.
Implementation mechanism
Since January 2025, various institutions – from the Police and Taxes, to the AKU, Customs, OSHEE, Waterworks and municipal police – have daily, weekly and monthly plans for fines. The list includes:
1. food, drug, hydrocarbon, forest, environmental inspectors;
2. transport, seaport, health, veterinary inspectors, etc.
3. Pressure on citizens and businesses
OSHEE, water utilities, Taxes or the Drug Directorate execute fines with paralyzing measures:
1. power or water supply interruption,
2. blockage of means of transport,
3. suspension of business activity,
often without respecting deadlines and legal appeal procedures.
Artificial increase in the value of fines
To “fill” the coffers, the government has amended the law twice, increasing by 50% to double the value of the existing 80% fines. Financial planning is done in advance: fines are included as income, although in reality they constitute an illegal obligation to the budget.
Hiding in fiscal items
In the draft budgets, this amount does not appear as a separate chapter; it is disguised within the category of “taxes and fiscal obligations”, as if it were ordinary central or local revenue. In fact, it is a matter of premeditated extortion: a source of money that comes not from taxes approved by consensus, but from penalties planned in advance./ Pamphlet
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