Kosovo's millions of neglected targets in Serb majority municipalities

Shterpca is one of six Serb majority municipalities south of the Iber River, about 50km from Pristina. In Kosovo's heavily inhabited Serb environments, health institutions operate according to the Serbian system, meanwhile for the construction of the hospital in Shtrpca, the government of Kosovo has given the money.

According to Zvonko, the hospital is much needed for the residents of Sterpce. He emphasises that his fellow citizens are sent for medical treatment in other Serb majority municipalities, in Gracanica near Pristina, or in northern Mitrovica in northern Kosovo, because there is no subject of secondary health in their municipality.

Instead of reducing the lives of citizens, instead of living citizens becoming simpler, easier and cheaper, things on the ground become unbearable”, Zvonko tells Radio Free Europe (REL).

Audience Report: Objects have been damaged and damaged

In its report for 2021, the National Auditing Office shows that the Sterpce Community has built a hospital worth 1.6m euros but still has not been operational, even though technical accession has been made in October 2012.

“Amortification of this object, by the end of 2021, has reached the value of 377.473 euros, while net value has remained at 1,269,684 euros”, the report says.

Equipment has been purchased for the hospital at one time, and the audience shows that the total value of those medical equipment amounts to 1.8m euros. These devices are stored in storage and not used.

It is also suggested that there are four residential objects in the municipal property register, which are built for families in need of social resources, and that 2,709,075 euros have been invested in them.

And if the buildings were completed more than six years ago, they still can't be used, they're not technically accepted. No one exploits these buildings, no one cares for them, and no maintenance. We have noted from the survey that these objects have been damaged and damaged”, the audience report says.

It is estimated that the cause for such a thing is “negression, irresponsability of management and lack of internal control”.

It further stresses that local authorities in Shtrpce are obliged to take measures needed to preserve property on the territory of that municipality.

Urgent measures must be taken to create preconditions for items in the warehouse and residence buildings for social occasions to be made available as soon as possible”, the audience report says.

Shtrepza Community Answer

From the Sterpce Community, which is led by Dalibor Yevtic from the ranks of the Serbian List, this Serb leader in Kosovo, say local authorities are working for the functioning of hospital “for the fact that the building itself has many injuries inside and outside”.

“has completed the object cleaning phase, as well as changing broken windows/doors. In the following period, we will work on other repairs to functionalisation of the facility so that at a later stage the hospital will be prepared for opening and operating. Our goal is that when the hospital is opened, it will offer the best secondary health care services”, they say in a written response to REL from the U.S. Mayor's cabinet.

However, an exact answer has not been received as to why destruction of the hospital facility has been allowed and why it has not been put into operation ten years ago when it was built.

Dalibor Yevtiq assumed the post of mayor of the Shrpca municipality following local elections at the end of 2021.

Until then, the Sterpce municipality -- since its founding after the Kosovo decentralisation process in 2008/2009 -- has been led by Bratislav Nikolic, who was arrested in an action by the Kosovo Police, for misusing the official position in December last year.

When it comes to residential units near the hospital itself, the Shtrpce municipality explains that technical acceptance of the objects was not made because of shortcomings and because the company that did the work was bankrupt.

For the fact that technical accession has not been completed, residences have not been able to separate, and later their theft and destruction occurred, which was reported to the police as well. The Shtrpce municipality plans to resolve this issue legally, but in other ways, in order for the residences to be divided”, they say from the Office of the mayor of the Shtrpce, adding that they will co-operate with competent institutions so the issue can be resolved.

The case has been raised at the Communist Convention.

Slavisa Vasilevich, adviser to the State Municipal Assembly, by the Civic Initiative “The Freedom of Sttreca” (Sloboda Schtrpce) says that in some cases at local meetings, she has raised the question of the hospital, meaning that she has not yet been put into operation. But as he says, no concrete answers have been received.

“The whole process is nontransparent, the Sterpce municipality has means to employ a certain number of people in secondary care. I haven't been able to find out why the hospital hasn't been operating so far”, Vasilevic says.

He also points out that the hospital building is in very bad shape today.
Besides primary healthcare, we don't have a hospital. For a little bigger medical intervention, you should go to Gracanica. We've had the right to have that hospital and the expectations have been huge”, Vasilevich adds.

Similar situation in Gracanica

About 10 years ago, construction of the modern hospital in Gracanica started with the tools of the Government of Kosovo. The project predicted that the hospital would span seven thousand square metres of 12 operating halls and a helicopter square, but is not completed until now.

The REL had written about this in April last year, while then the president, Srdjan Popovic, could not specify why the hospital was never finished, with the reason that “found such a situation”.

He said local authorities would turn that object into residential space, while the hospital would be built “very soon” with the tools of the Government of Serbia.

Later, in the post of Gracanica municipality chairman, Lilana Shubariq, also from the ranks of the Serbian List, but has not responded to REL questions about whether it is even further in the plan for the unfinished hospital to be transformed into residential units and when new hospital construction will begin.

In Gracanica, the secondary health service has been operating in the tin container since 1999, in which the then Clinical Hospital Centre (QSK) was moved from Pristina.

Patients from the territory of the Gracanica municipality are home to this health institution, but there are also patients from other municipalities south of the Iber River.

Doctors working at the Clinical Hospital Centre in Gracanica have, in some cases, highlighted the alarming state of health care, whether they have no tools to work and that after a few years they will be without personnel, while patients are often forced to run tests at private clinics.

Meanwhile, Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq himself, in 2018, has warned of the construction of a new hospital in Gracanica, with funds from the government of Serbia.

However, for all these years, only the site on which the “needs to be built has been provided soon the hospital.

Stojanovic: Hospital construction promises remained only words

The former head of the Gracanica municipality, Branimir Stojanovic, believes he has not had enough will, in the past two decades, to build a hospital and express regret that he himself does not have “structure” completed the hospital construction project, which the Government of Kosovo has allocated money for.

There have always been some promises that the Government of Serbia or anyone else will build that hospital. Unfortunately, until now, all those promises have remained only words and we are still being treated in those tin containers and not in adequate conditions”, Stojanovic points out.

Branimir Stojanovic was elected mayor of Gracanica after the November 2013 local elections, but in December of the following year, Kosovo's deputy prime minister was elected.

According to him, building the hospital with the funds of the Government of Kosovo has not been a success story, because there has not been enough money and not because someone has not wanted to mix the Kosovo system with the Serbian one.

Then we faced the fact that there were doubts about serious financial abuse. We had a project under investigation for possible abuse. It was absolutely impossible for independently to be realized to the end. The Kosovo government gave up this, and that building remained in the phase that makes the object untapped”, Stojanovic says.

The uninhabited residential building in Gracanica built in 2019 for young married couples, displaced and poor people.

He doesn't know if Gracanica will ever have a hospital because the “s that decide on such a thing are not treated here today”

Also, there are residential units in Gracanica, which were built in 2019 but still are without owners. Those items were damaged on several occasions and then local authorities compensated for the damage.

The contest for the division of residential units, destined for young married couples, vulnerable social persons and displaced persons, was announced for the first time in October 2021 during the campaign for local elections.

Then, in February of this year, the new local leadership cancelled the competition without a specific explanation. The new competition for the division of these residential units has not yet been published.