Pristina's parks out of state control, damage to budget

20 years after the war, the Pristina municipality continues to face large numbers of vehicles across sidewalks and private parking lots, since the municipality still has no concrete plan for public parking. On the other hand, private parking lots are damaging the state chest and the citizen.

Most of these businesses do not issue fiscal coupons, as well as offer no safety for vehicles during their stay in these spaces. Also disturbing is the price that is never defined and the lowest price for an hour's stay is 1 euro. First of all, these irregularities, the MTI Inspectorate and Pristina municipality are continuing to close their eyes.

Butrint Wessel is one of the drivers who almost every day park his car in one of the private parking lots operating in the capital.

He complains that they are never releasing a fiscal coupon.

We've paid 1 euro and no tax understanding... not usually in parking lots. As long as we leave the car we're safe”, he says.

The same problem lies with Arieta Miftari, who says that it often happens to her not to give her the fiscal coupon.

She also expresses her uncertainty about where she parks her car.

It wasn't a fiscal coupon... it's sometimes even a fiscal coupon, but it wasn't fiscal today. And I'm thinking that the price is reasonable to some extent and it's at the center and I believe that security is at” level, she claims.

But besides what citizens say, the owner of 15 auto parking points “Bler”, Blerim Shabani, insists that the properties that develop his business activity are secure and that every fiscal coupon device is always safe.

We have law that I first put it... and we try it now when the client always tries to trust us, and we leave the car, and we walk right away, for example, right now when he comes up we give him the coupon, sometimes we try to get ready, we try to install the camera... For every point we have a camera, no point is there's no security in us”, he says.

Besides these irregularities, it is still not known exactly how many private parking cars operate in the capital. This is because the Agency for Registering Kosovo Business (ARBK) data is not in line with those of the Kosovo Tax Administration.

The ARBK, which operates under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, has told KosovaPress that 38 auto parking lots are registered in the capital as businesses.

“in Pristina operates 38 active companies that have the 5221 code, including auto parking lot”, the ARBK officials say.

In the Kosovo Tax Administration, however, it is suggested that on the basis of carrying out tax obligations in the capital, 30 of these businesses operate.

ATK spokeswoman Valentina Bytyqi Sefa for Kosova Prees indicated that during inspections, major violations have been observed in terms of not giving fiscal coupons, as well as confiscated printers that issue non-Fiscal coupons.

“The capital works somewhere around 30 parking lots, these are statistics based on the declaration and payment they've made for this year... For the January period of September, parking lots that operate in the capital have probably declared and paid off obligations worth 2.8 million euros... the second is a little bit more frequent with parking lots being used by each of us citizens and citizens are now becoming regular parking rapporteurs and any other activity that has to do with not issuing fiscal coupons and issuing fiscal vouchers that are released from fiscal printers that we haven't developed in order to develop a number of their own parking stocks, says the Byty-Secipher.

According to citizens' reports, it says that by this time of year some 236 private parking lots have been fined.

And in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, it is suggested that the inspectorate of this ministry has not inspected parking lots in the capital, due to the small number of inspectors.

MTI Market Chief Inspector Lulzim Syla has warned joint raids with municipal inspectors.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry except parking does other products, but seeing as we have a small number of small staff we haven't been able to perform much inspections about these parking lots, but I've issued a warrant to the inspectors not only in Pristina, but also in other municipalities... We record them, but it's under the administration of parking municipalities, they're not under our administration, so that's why together in the absence of inspectors to go out into the field and inspect all parking lots that are just registered, or those that are not normal registered that have to shut down”, he says.

Pristina municipality spokeswoman Miranda Mullafazliu, on the other hand, has declared for KosovaPress that the inspection of private parking lots is not the responsibility of the Pristina municipality's Inspectorate.