Supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Pristina, these town hall conferences are intended to examine the difficulties that municipalities face in collecting revenues and spending their budgets. They also present the findings of the Auditor General, with a particular emphasis on those relating to public finances.
The conference was attended by the mayor of the municipality of Dragash, Shaban Shabani, Assistant Auditor General, Emine Fazliu, the managing editor at KALLXO.com, Visar Prebreza, as well as representatives of civil society and municipal assembly members. The conference was streamed live on BIRN’s anti-corruption platform KALLXO.com.
Prebreza gave a brief presentation about an analysis of the auditor’s findings, noting that “the pandemic has complicated the issue of revenues and the expenditures of public money in this municipality.”
Assistant Auditor General Fazliu stated that the opinion the National Audit Office provided on the annual financial statements for the Municipality of Dragash for 2019 was an unmodified opinion, which means that the annual financial statements present a true and fair view in all material respects.
Mayor Shabani assessed that “holding this debate contributes to increasing the transparency of the municipality”, adding that the municipality considers the Auditor General a very important mechanism for improving governance.
Similar town hall conferences will be held in other municipalities in Kosovo with the aim of presenting BIRN’s analysis of the implementation of the auditor’s recommendations and public finances. All of them will be held in the municipal buildings of the municipalities in question, and will be livestreamed by BIRN Kosovo.