AKK-Matit Ibrahimi: Minister not to offend municipalities and not become judge

Ibrahim said Minister Murati should not assume the role of the judge and determine whether such an act is in vain or not.

“Minister Murati does not know whether he is taking the role of Constitutional Court judge he considers to be a vain act or that we should leave the Constitutional Court. Such a verdict must be issued by the Constitutional Court... As for the past property tax law, Minister Murati knows, is aware, but in the declaration he is not being honest, because real estate assessment could happen in 2024, where property tax bills would go to 2025.

But why not, if you ask some mayors, they allude that this did not happen because if the bills were raised in 2024, the impact of those bills would be in 2025, when it is also the electoral year”, he said.

The first of Kosovo municipalities for Kosova Preiss said he expects the Constitutional Court's decision to be pro-evaluating this law.

And we believe that the answer will be for the municipalities, because we have, for opposite of the constitutionality of this law because it says here whether municipal responsibilities are violated or municipality revenues are reduced, in this case even based on the law on local self-government, where it is of personal competence, but we have the European charter on local government as an international act, where we have to do with financial autonomy but even automatism, if that happens, even in turn of the income itself...

Like you tell a mayor to reduce your budget when there's a lot of capital investment projects in that budget. Why do the central level make decisions at the expense of municipalities, if you make a decision to make it your own budget, Ibrahim said.

He stressed that the damage that can be done to municipalities with the adoption of this law could amount to up to 30m euros.

This case has directly been violated by the responsibility or personal competence of the municipality, but it also has an impact on reducing municipal revenues, and according to the notes that we value that the damage that will be done to municipal budgets will be about 30m euros. 30m euros for municipalities is an extremely high amount, considering that only 22.6 percent next year will be divided into municipalities, while 77.4 percent will be at the central level...

In rural municipalities, but even in the middle municipalities if such an apology is made, about 80 percent and perhaps more will be damaged, the financial means from personal revenues from property tax”, he said.

He called on the central level not to polarise Kosovo society.

We call on the central level not to polarise Kosovo society by causing inter-institutional problems, the vocabulary it is using... He said municipalities are behaving hypocritically, alluding to saying so and acting differently. In this case we demand that the municipalities not be offended, such a vocabulary left behind...

It's been made a re-evaluation of property last year with the impact of bills this year, while the law referring to Minister Murati says that the Ministry of Finance through the relevant property tax department conducts general estimates once every three years or once every five years, has after the possibility that in 2022 or 2024”, the Ibrahmi potential.

Ibrahmi indicated they have accepted the notes from 29 municipalities in the Republic of Kosovo, but according to him, this does not mean that other municipalities did not want to send because they had limited time, and that municipal officials may have been on vacation.

On Friday, demand for assessing the legality of the Property Tax Law, which the executive director of Association, Sazan Ibrahimi and the mayor of Prizren municipality, Shacir Totaj, has made.