Opinions & Interviews
Lukashenko: The main thing is to keep the country for our children
GRODNO, 16 June (BelTA) – Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko met with the personnel of OAO Grodno Azot on 16 June, BelTA has learned.
The head of state said that Belarus and other countries had faced various viruses in different years and had managed to cope with all the problems. “We will get over it, too. We have had worse coronaviruses in our history. Yet, we are alive. The main thing is to preserve our country, our piece of land for ourselves and our children,” Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed.
One of the employees of the enterprise noticed that this year's presidential election coincides with another, no less important campaign for the country - the harvest. He wondered whether the first event would impede the second one.
Aleksandr Lukashenko said that the sowing campaign took place at the start of the pandemic, and back then the main task was to sow crops on time. The country did well. “The main task for me and for everyone is to secure a successful harvest time. Both the pandemic and elections will be over, but we will always need food,” said the head of state. He recalled the food issues people had in the 1990s: food was distributed by coupons. “God forbid us to return to this again. We will never get back to that again. Today we produce everything that our people need at affordable prices,” the president said.
Aleksandr Lukashenko believes that salaries in the country need to be higher. “We will be doing our best to double salaries within the next five years. Especially this concerns teachers and doctors. It is inadmissible for a doctor, a teacher, a cultural worker to earn so little. This is because we are not doing a very good job in the economy,” the head of state stressed.
He cited the construction of a new nitrogen fertilizer plant in Grodno, which is to be commissioned in 2020. According to Aleksandr Lukashenko, this will help boost the economy of the region. “It will be a factory that will produce goods that are in demand on the market,” the president added.
“The election campaign will be held in a proper manner, do not worry. Are these our first elections? The main thing is not to lose the country, not to have our country be given away to loungers and those who promise to scatter money from the helicopter: investors will come and bring us something. Investors will come from abroad, but they will say: we will not pay taxes, give us cheap raw materials, and people will have a salary of $300. We do not need such investments. We will build this plant ourselves,” Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed.
Returning to the topic of coronavirus, the head of state expressed confidence that Belarus had chosen the right method to fight the pandemic. “The one who isolated the people, got a second wave. I do not mean that everything is perfect here, especially in Grodno - I know the situation. We are happy that Vitebsk Oblast, where it all started from, Minsk, Minsk Oblast are recovering. The good news is that you discharge more people from the hospital than send there. The good news is also that this virus has weakened. You were caught in the wave of a weakened virus,” the president said.
The president also noted the difficult situation with the coronavirus in Russia. According to him, Moscow is coping with it somehow. They are planning to hold a parade. “The Belarusians held the parade on 9 May, and Russia not. They want to do it now. But the situation is very difficult, and we of course are taking precautions so that this does not come back to us. I think it will not because we have not closed anything,” said Aleksandr Lukashenko.
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