The Prizren municipality does not respect the criteria it sets itself

ROK says that at the beginning of 2018, they have launched a co-operation with Prizren's municipality with the goal of improving cultural policies and procedures and project assessment criteria, following the multi-year survey of the network for building a sustainable and worthy system of supporting cultural organisations from Prizren.

“As a result, Prizren's municipality for the first time made public calls, as well as assessment of projects in calls from 2018, marking some progress in this direction. This co-operation was further expanded, with regular representation of ROK on commissions and working groups about issues affecting culture, cultural heritage, tourism and public space, ensuring investments for cultural heritage protection and development, but also different meetings and consultation in this direction, where member organisations and ROK envoys have voluntarily contributed significant contributions to the institutional development of Prizren's municipality and reforming the governance of these areas. In continuation of this co-operation, The DKRS requested from the ROK Secretariat to delegate a member even for the call of 2019, which the headship of the network appointed. In the absence of any further news about the commission's appointment decision, we requested information from the DKRS and the president's cabinet regarding this issue, but we did not get any official answers and were eventually informed of the list of supported organisations and individuals in a process that has ignored our nomination. Beyond that, our demand for publication of project titles, the sum, as well as the decision on appointment of the session, in respect of obligations defined in the regulation over “Criter, Standards and Public Financing Procedures of NGOs”, was ignored overall by the executive. In the absence of transparency over the manner of selection and final results, ignoring the ongoing ROK, as well as disrespecting its call criteria, member organisations express complete dissatisfaction with the way the call management is managed, describing this as a turning point to zero in overhaul and development of the culture sector and radical transparency, in full opposition to the executive statements and pledges. In this response, we call on Prizren's municipality to examine these practices and decisions, and to respect its vows and to prove its will for co-operation in reforming and prioritising culture in Prizren's development agenda”, it is said in response.