Category: News and Events

Besides the mayor, the representatives of civil society, journalists and citizens also took part in the debate.

“Life in Municipality” begun with a broadcast, which was a summary of promises Mr. Berisha had given two years ago, when he asked the citizens to vote for him.

This summary served as a reminder of promises, which mayor Berisha said would be priorities of his mandate. Those promises had to do mainly with improving the conditions of education, health, culture, youth and sport, archaeology, lighting all of public spaces in the city as well as with construction of parks as areas of public significance. The mayor also promised to improve the infrastructure by asphalting roads, and constructing the water supply and sewage network.

On the other hand, GAP Institute and BIRN researchers went to Fushë-Kosova to check whether or not mayor’s promises were met.

For example, the residents of “Bardhi i Madh”, the largest village in this municipality, were complaining about the lack of drinking water.

They said that the water supply system was built with materials which pose a serious risk to human health. They also mentioned that, according to international standards, it is prohibited to use (build?) such water supply systems.

When it comes to investments in health sector promised by mayor Berisha, opposition said that the ambulances through village have not been functionalized yet. Opposition representatives added that only 13% of the budged allocated for this sector was spent.

Commenting on references about him failing to fulfil the election campaign promises, Mr. Berisha said that there is a range of factors which caused delays in important projects, like, for example, the water supply project.

“The inadequate attitude of the state water company and the Ministry of Trade and Industry towards this issue is the key reason these projects have not been seen through”, major Berisha said.

Mayor Berisha also spoke about the successes of municipality’s football team – this contributing to development of football and sport in general in Fushe-Kosove municipality. He explained that the investments he made in some sport schools have made it all worthwhile because the footballers became champions in the respective category.

He said that the other success of his governance is public lights which work on solar energy and also paving the municipal roads.

Meanwhile, wastewater continues to be the problem in this municipality. The pollution and landfills, delays in construction of the schools and the water factory in Kuzmin – were cited as promises Mr. Berisha did not fulfil.

At the end of the debate, mayor Berisha answered some questions asked by the residents of Fushe-Kosove municipality.

At the beginning there was broadcast a reportage which covered the pledges of mayor made two years ago.  In order to see whether those promises have been met, monitors of Gap Institute as well as those from BIRN have emerged in the field to verify whether the promises presented in the paper have been concretized in practice.

During the debate there has been discussed problem with which Junik municipality is faced in daily basis. These problems require greater commitment and engagement by the officials of the municipality, claimed mayor Agron Kuçi. Among the mayor issues discussed were: deforestation, lack of irrigation system, as well as lack of tourism and culture development.

Also, there was raised the education situation within the municipality.  The lack of kindergarten was the main concern that citizens and opposition parties presented.

In regard of education, mayor Kuçi said that the schools building are new and are quite suitable for teaching. However, the mayor admitted that these schools do not have yet sports halls where students can develop their physical and cognitive skills.

Being asked about the developments in culture sector, mayor Kuçi said that despite the investments made over three past years, the Junik municipality has lack of Culture House which could be used for cultural activities and about other citizens meetings.

“When we mention culture there inevitably should be included the sport – in which aspect unfortunately our municipality lacks a lot, said Mr. Kuçi.

Although most mined areas in Kosovo have already been cleaned of mines, the residents of rural parts of Junik are still feeling in danger due to un-cleaned areas. The Junik municipality is one of the few cities that still have mined territory. Mine risk is also one of the reasons why two villages Gjocaj and Jasiq have divided to move to the town of Junik – said the “Life in Municipality”.

Meanwhile in terms of the municipal budget, in 2009 Junik had 841.000 euros. Of this amount, municipality has carried own revenues in the amount of 35,000 euros and 806.103 euros of total budget, which was intergovernmental grant. But, as in any other municipality, this budget as well as capital investments are expected to be increased.

Like with other municipalities, Rahovec hosted the team of “Life in Municipality”. The debate involved a lot of citizens, journalists, representatives of opposition parties as well as representatives of civil society.

Mayor, Smajl Latifi faced criticism during the debate, which had to do mainly with his failure to fulfil the election pledges made at the end of 2009.

At the beginning, a report revealing municipality’s most significant problems was aired. According to the interviewed citizens the main problem of their municipality remains to be the lack of electricity supply. 

In the absence of a power station, Rahovec municipality receives its electricity from Gjakova. The electricity reductions happen very frequently and affect the business.

The citizens of Rahovec also are concerned about municipal investments being focused only on the urban part of the municipality, with local government ignoring villages and rural areas.

In connection to this, they mentioned the investment in youth sports centre – a project which was considered significant. On the other hand, there was no investment to ensure the water supply for villages Dobidol, Çiflag, Kromovik, Palluzh, Gur and Kuq which have around 9000 residents, but no drinking water.

Citizens also expressed their concerns regarding the lack of school infrastructure and the risk of river flooding.

During the election camping, the current mayor promised better infrastructure and in general he managed to meet those promises. However, many promises failed to be realized. The municipality finished the construction of a road of five kilometres. It also succeeded to make the city park functional; despite the citizens arguing that this was unnecessary, since the city already had a park.

It is worth mentioning that the mayor has failed to implement the promises he gave about improving the situation in the sector of culture. He specifically promised to increase the book volume in city’s libraries. There is also delay in fulfilling the promises about investing in education.

The schools that the mayor, during his campaign in 2009, promised will be built, have seen just the earliest phase of construction. GAP Institute and BIRN monitors went to the municipality to see if mayor Qeska had fulfilled his promises.

One of mayor’s many promises was to improve water supply for villages of Pagasos and Çilak. Unfortunately, despite mayor’s promises, the residents of these villages continue to experience shortage of drinking water. 

During the election camping, candidate, Gradimir Miukiq, during the pre-electoral debates broadcasted within “Life in Kosovo” as well as during other public appearances, made a multitude of promises. Monitors of GAP institute and BIRN has came to Ranillug to check whether those promises have been met. In 2010 they wrote a public letter to Mr. Mikiq, reminding him once again that he is responsible for meeting those promises. 

The research which measured the level to which the promises have been fulfilled, revealed that even after two years of governance, only two promises have seen realization, while the mayor made no concrete steps to fulfil other three major promises he had given.  

Most of the promises had to do with the construction of Ranillug, Gllogovc and Kremjan roads, which was to be finished until the end of the mandate. The research shows that this project is not finished yet. But there were some successful projects which were finished on time. One such project was the construction of sewage in the village of Domoroc. The mayor has promised that he will fix this problem, and he did. This sewage was constructed in 2011 with a budget of 46.785 euro.

Among other things the mayor has promised better maintenance of environment cleaning of wastewater in Morava River as well as cleaning of the waste in the villages. Regarding this, it can be said that this municipality is generally clean.

On the other hand, the establishment of the municipal company for waste management is considered an unfulfilled promise.

The municipal authorities have not considered the issue of transparency to be an important one. The organizational structure of this institution does not include a public relations office, which means that no one person no a department have the responsibility of informing the public about everything that happens in the municipality.

In addition, the information on the official web site of the municipality mostly covers only the activities of the mayor’s office and his daily agenda but there are no documents or information which could be important to citizens, the public and the municipality.

The website of the Ranillug municipality can be considered very poor, since there is no regulation, decisions or regulatory plans published. There is generally a lack of information on the website, since the municipality failed to publish the budget reports for 2011-2012.

Dragash municipality is one of the municipalities with the lowest budget, standing at around 5.9 million euro. In the past two years a significant part of the budget has been used for road construction. Due to poor economy, a vast number of citizens of this municipality emigrated and many villages risk being empted. On the other hand, the municipality continued to construct roads to these villages despite the low number of residents.

During the 2009 election campaign, mayoral candidate for the second term, now Mayor z. Salim Jonuzi (PDK), had presented to the electorate a development program and other promises for better life in this municipality. After recording all the promises made during the election campaign, GAP Institute researchers and those from BIRN came to the municipality to see whether the promises of Mr. Jenuzi have been met. As usual, at the beginning of the program, there was a TV report with promises, which also pointed to the conclusion about them being met or not.

The report included citizens, members of civil society and opposition parties who showed their concerns about these promises not being realized.

Among the promises made by Mr. Dragash Jenuzi were: construction of a hydro plant in Zhur, despite the fact that the implementation of such project is the responsibility of respective ministry. In 2009, the municipality decided to prohibit construction of new facilities in three villages (Qollopek, Brezne and Buqe) and decided to move the local population because of the hydro plant. But, despite this, the people continue to build new houses there, Brezne also being the only village in which houses were built over the past 12 years.                                                                

The citizens of the municipality said that nothing has been done in terms of realization of these promises. Furthermore, the villagers to be relocated have not received any official information regarding the future of their assets.

Another thing which the mayor has promised was the construction of a business centre. The report revealed that the construction of this centre has begun, but has not been completed yet, due to lack of water, electricity and sewage.

Other promises had to do with the construction of school buildings and supplying the existing schools with new equipment and cabinets. Researchers of GAP Institute and BIRN have observed that up to now there was no new school built. Further, there has not been any increase in quality of education in this municipality. For example, replacing the experienced teachers with those who just graduated raises concerns about quality which the educational system of this municipality is offering.

The mayor has promised improved conditions in the health sector. More specifically, he promised to supply the FMCs with the necessary drugs. In practice, most of the FMCs continues to experience the lack of essential drugs. Citizens are forced to buy drugs in private pharmacies which are not near the health institutions.

Mr. Jenuzi has promised the improvement of infrastructure as well. Two years ago, he promised to pave all of the city’s roads. It is evident that most of the roads are finished and are functioning well, but there still are many roads in the city as well as the villages, which have not been paved yet.

After seeing the report, Mr. Jenuzi said: “We, nevertheless tried to improve the lives of citizens as much as we could…I can say that all the local roads have been asphalted, except for three, which we have not managed to finish,” he concluded.

Monitors of the GAP institute and BIRN went to there in order to monitor to what extent has mayor fulfilled his promises.

The monitors found that, the construction of the wastewater collector has not started yet and confirmed the claims by Malisheva opposition of Malisheva which say that no investments for this project have been planned.

“Even though this is considered municipality’s great achievement and despite that 90 per cent of the work is done, the promise is not close to realization, because this is a very expensive project,” said Besnik Hoti, assembly member from the Democratic Party of Kosovo.

The same evaluation of this project was given by the representatives of “Vetevendosje” movement, who said that this promise has not been fulfilled at all. According to them, the implementations of different projects were focused only on some villages where the sewage system was built, but not to an extent which would make the project functional and successful. 

A resident of Bubel village, concerned about this project’s failure, as this would further decrease the quality of living of the locals.

In addition, the investments to increase the tourist capacities of this municipality are missing. The most beautiful tourist attractions, particularly the “Mirusha” waterfall, were not subjected to any mayor investment. There were, however some investments, such as the expansion of the road which leads to the waterfall and the construction of several parks, an investment which still awaits completion.

On the other hand, Mr. Kilaj said that all the criticism with which he was faced during the debate had a political background. As far as the construction of the wastewater collector is concerned, he said that this part of the project will be finished within two or three months.

At the end of the debate a woman considered to be a role model and the “Pride of the Municipality”, was presented to audience. Mrs. Mazeku is a teacher who dedicates all her time to working with children with special needs.