Kosovo Assembly: Over 1m 300 thousand euros for salaries and wages in the first three months of the year

For the first three months of this year, Kosovo's Assembly has spent 1m 313m euros only on wages and wages, while for goods and expenditures it has spent 168 thousand and 103 euros.

This has been announced today by Kosovo Parliament Secretary Ismet Krasniqi at the Commission for Business, Work and Transfers during reporting on the assembly's spending for the first quarter of 2021.

Opposition MPs expressed their dissatisfaction with the low level of spending for capital projects on the part of parliament.

Secretary Krasniqi stressed that capital expenditures for this period are 254 thousand euros.

According to the data presented in the first quarter of 2021, we have this budget mirror: we spent 1 million and 313 thousand euros on the salary category, or 17.11 percent on the first quarter. For goods and expenses we have 168 thousand and 103 euros expressed at a percentage of 10.38 per cent, for municipal expenses 59 thousand and 825, for capital expenditures 254 thousand or 19.82 per cent”, Krasniqi stressed.

Kosovo Deputy Chairman of the Assembly Bedri Hamza at the same time as a member of the Commission said the expenditures that have occurred in parliament are within budgetary lines, but has encouraged the secretary and the Assembly administration to have a higher dynamic of spending on capital projects.

“Encourages the secret and administration to have better dynamics in realising capital spending. We know that pandemic caused problems last year, but we've had a situation where there's been an execution of capital expenditures less than planned than need has been. I hope this year the budget will be realised, even though the Assembly is a budget organisation where more than 70 per cent of the total budget goes to salaries”, Hamza said.

Commission Chairman Armend Muija has asked the secretary for telephone and advisory service contracts.

For phone services, how to contract phone services. What are the procedures, is it done through public procurement procedures? Because in the past there have been speculation that direct contracting of an economic operator can break the Law on Competition in Kosovo... As far as counseling services are concerned in what form they compliment existing research on the directorate for the research of Parliament”, Muja has asked.

Secretary Krasniqi in his response said the contract for phone services is continuation from an operator like any other central institution, while for the Commission's Council-expert contracts said experts are paid up to 800 euros.

“In the middle of the Ministry of Public Administration at the time with Kosovo Post-Telekom, we are users of the same continuation, but this contract is valid as it is with other central Kosovo institutions... The advisory spending category is such an organisation that parliamentary commissions and the investigative commission have a budget dedicated to exploiting experts. Under the directive, an expert can be paid mostly for an issue of up to 800 euros, while the fees of municipal courts --” have been taken on investigative commissions, he said.

By majority of votes, the Commission decided to recommend Kosovo's Assembly Chiefship to approve the spending report for the first quarter of 2021.

The Commission has also reviewed and approved the annual financial report by the Kosovo Competition Authority for 2020.

Directors of this Commission stressed that this authority in 2020 had pronounced administrative penalties in many of the more than 4m euros on 14 companies of duties for secret deals, while according to them this sentence has not yet been paid by large oil companies, as there is still no ruling by the court.

The Board, Job and Transfer Commission has also reviewed the annual financial report of the Agency for Information and Privateship for 2020, where General Director Bujar Sadiku has announced the amount of 57 thousand euros in wages and wages. /I. Shaban/