North doesn't pay south is left without water

Residents of Kosovo's northern municipalities for years have failed to pay bills for water expenses.

Over 12m euros are estimated at the value of spent water bills, which have not been paid by Serb residents of these municipalities since the end of the war, say Regional Water Company leaders “Mitrovica”, under which, unless measures are taken, water production is threatened.

Regional company, the “Mitrovica”, is located in Shipol. It is the only licensed company to carry out drinking water supply and canal maintenance in the Mitrovica region, including the municipalities of southern and northern Mitrovica, Vushtrria, Skyeraj and Zvecan.

Even officials of the Ministry of Economic Development in Kosovo's outgoing Government agree that the water spent on that section is not paid.

In a response to Radio Free Europe, Public Enterprise Policy and Monitoring Unit officials at the Ministry of Economic Development have said that one of the reasons for the failure to pay bills is the deliberate refusal to pay bills from consumers, social cases and incapacitatement.

This problem, they say, is a subject of discussion from the postwar to all relief factors.

To enable the operation of the Regional Water Company “Mitrovica”, it says further in response, since 2009 this company has been subsidised by financial means from the Kosovo Republic of Kosovo budget worth over five million euros in order to cover operational expenditures caused by the non-paying of citizens' bills, mainly the northern part of Mitrovica.

Even the executive chief of the water company “Mitrovica”, Sami Miftari for Radio Free Europe, says more than 5m euros have been granted government subsidies. But these are insufficient, according to him, for the possibility of operating the company.

It calls for new institutions released from the June 11th elections, for this problem to be solved, also taking into account its political nature.

Miftari shows he has demanded that at least state institutions in that part pay bills, but that hasn't happened either.

In view of the fact that 40 percent of general water is spent on northern Mitrovica municipalities, Miftari says that in certain cases citizens of other municipalities are punished, (consistently South Mitrovica, Vushtrria and Skenderaj), with water supply cuts, as supply is not allowed to stop in the northern part.

This sometimes happens, the fabrika in Shipol and Balinca is working with full capacity, but sometimes we are forced to do construction in the municipality of Mitrovica, Vushtrri, but also the Skenderajit”.

“This is a problem that urgently needs to be solved by the future Government of Kosovo, because it is a heavy burden. We buy water from the Iber-Lepenci channel, about 400,000 euros a month. It's the nonsense that we buy water, and on the other hand we forgive water”, Miftar says.

Residents of that part, except they don't even pay their energy bills, the price for this product is five times lower than in other regions.

On the other hand, noting this distinction among citizens as human rights violations, the Ombudsman's institution has already opened official investigation, ombudsman Hilmi Yasar told Radio and Free Europe.

This case is currently in the process of research, as far as legal base and corruption are concerned with responsible authorities. So it's under investigation. And once the research is complete, we're going to come up with a report that will assess whether it's a violation of human rights”, says Jashar,

In addition to the failure to pay the spent water bills, residents of this section do not pay electricity bills, which account for 8m euros annually.