Abraham: Mayors assess that there is discrimination in division of municipal budget

The director of the Kosovo Commission Association, Saban Ibrahimi, says the mayors estimate there is discrimination in the division of the municipal budget.

Ibrahimi says the mayors of municipalities coming from the opposition stress that unobjective criteria have been used in the budgetary division.

“Mayors estimate that there is discrimination on the basis of the analyses that have been conducted in the Kosovo Republic budget for this year, they stress that the line ministries for some municipalities are behaving like mothers, whereas for some municipalities, they do not have such an approach. And such a note is reflected in the European Commission Progress Report for the past year, where it says that mayors of municipalities coming from the opposition, from the opposition, come the absolute majority of mayors, stress that in budgetary division, they are using objective criteria. Only the fourth grant is the solution to this problem. We have municipalities this year which have zero new capital investments”, Ibrahim told Blic newspaper.

He also requires that the percentage of the divided budget rise further.

We are pleased with every cent that goes to the municipalities of the Republic of Kosovo, for this reason that we don't have dilemmas we require the founding of the fourth grant, where all municipalities would equally benefit from these investments. We as association demand that this percentage of 22.4 be raised further, not that the absolute majority of tools stay at the central level when we know that the lives of citizens develop at the local level of”, he added.

Ibrahimi points out that the central level is not consulted for local-level decisions, with the result being caused by the municipal budget, where it mentions the law on property tax.

He therefore stresses that around 23 municipalities have not supported such a law