State handed over to stonebreakers destroying Kosovo hills

Kosovo is crumbling. The giant extremes that erode slopes every day to extract gravel are seriously threatened with extinction. Such machines are seen in almost every part of the country.

But the two main institutions for the preservation of natural resources in Kosovo do not even know how many stonebreakers work by license, and how many operate illegally.

The Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning and the Independent Commission for Mining and Minerals provide different figures regarding the stonebreakers. For MMPH in Kosovo with license, 140 stonebreakers operate, while according to KPM data there are 188 sosh, the Word newspaper writes.

“The number of stonebreakers in Kosovo is about 140”, the Word Journal from the KPM Information Office has said, while quite another figure has been provided by the Environment Ministry.

“The number of stonebreakers in Kosovo with license is 188 (Lice of exploitation)”, Bajram Kadriu, said for information at MMPH.

These two institutions, responsible for maintaining natural resources, despite the fact that they both have inspections for surveillance on the ground, but neither turns out to have accurate figures for the number of stonebreakers.

In their response to the Word Journal, they have blamed each other more than have witnessed the danger of illegal operators ruining the environment.

This, despite legislation in effect, is binding for physical control in the field. The Ministry of Environment inspectorate by law has the responsibility to deal with cases of environmental pollution, while the KPM on taxes and fees.

On the other hand, the situation on the ground is alarming.

According to experts, more rivers, mountains of other natural resources are being destroyed in Kosovo.

The former Ministry of Environment official Besim Dobdruna, expert acquaintances in this area, has recently spoken of the Journal Word. He has said that total control over the stonebreakers from this ministry is missing, and has been alarmed at the risk of destroying natural resources.

Dobruna, who was part of the MMPH by 2015, has presented documents through which he claims that within this ministry all these years there has been a fraud scheme, where only private operators and related people have been the beneficiaries.

“The assumption of the 2008-2015 period is that, with mMPH inaction, Kosovo's budget has been damaged by 150,200m euros and in favour of operators. While 2009-2017 budget has been damaged by MMPH”, “analysis says Using natural resources”, implemented by Institute I NECO, led by Dobruna.

With legislation in effect, the Ministry of Environment must impose taxes on operators who have abused natural resources. But neither in the case of water nor in the case of stonebreakers, nor in the damage to rivers and operators who pollute the environment through explosives.

KPM hides names of illegal stonebreakers

This irresponsability of institutions has led tens of us to operate in Kosovo today, if not hundreds of illegal stonebreakers.

According to the KPM, at the moment there are 49 illegal stonebreakers operating, but this institution has not found it reasonable to publish their names, despite the paper's insistence and demand for access to public documents.

Based on evidence that KPM has only for 2017 were sent to the competent 46 criminal prosecutions for illegal acts and are in the screening procedure.

Also, so far we've sent 50 fines in accordance with Article 79 of the Mining and Mines No. 03 L-63”, says KPM's response to the Word Gazette.

Officials from this institution do not publish the list of illegals reason with investigations being conducted by the prosecution.

The list of illegal-ilegal actions is not for the public because all of these criminal allegations we've sent to the competent prosecutor are in procedure of review and publication will affect the development of the procedure and until competent courts make a decision, we can't take them as illegal until the decision becomes almighty and executed”

How much money is collected from this sector

But Dobruna in an analysis of this sector, says the KPM has achieved over the years that, according to its competencies, will register the means from the taxes and obligations of operators. However, according to him, the Ministry of Environment has not done the job here, which for all these postwar years has not applied any environmental pollution tax from the stonebreaker, why it is legally imposed.

“The assumption of analysis for the 2008-2015 period is that, with MMPH inaction, Kosovo's budget has been damaged by 150,200m euros and in favour of operators”, Dobruna has said.

Meanwhile, according to KPM data, it turns out that this institution has managed to make it very satisfactory to tax the stonebreakers.

Only until September of this year's revenues from the sector have it been 24m and 412 thousand euros. These include administrative taxes of 325 thousand euros, administrative fines 136 thousand euros, and 23.9m euros from the mineral entity. /The Word/