Bank accounts for several municipalities are blocked, Ibrahim: The municipalities have received over 210m euros

For this, the head of the Kosovo Commission Association, Saban Ibrahimi, in a statement to Kosovo Press stresses that the problem lies at the central level that is not consulted with municipalities for “the networks it is receiving from”.

He says that, municipalities facing this phenomenon, are the municipalities of Ferizaj, Lipjan, Drenas, Vushtrria and Yunik. In this regard, the Ministry of Finance, until the moment this news is published, has not answered Kosovo priss questions.

The “municipalities of the Republic of Kosovo are constantly blocking bank accounts. We've had cases like this, and last year, we're being repeated. As long as we're talking, there are five municipalities that have their accounts blocked and we're hoping that during these days, these accounts will be opened. It's the municipality of Ferizaj, Lipjan, Drenas, Vushtria, but today I've had a conversation with the mayor of Junik, but also with the mayor of the Year, and the mayor of Yunik has complained because there will be no means to cover the expenses that will flow out of the water, from the management of waste for buildings and facilities managed by the Yunik municipality. It means municipalities are once facing this challenge, and the main problem is standing at the central level. The central level earlier, in past governments, municipalities have been consulted in advance rather than obtaining financial means, and from which categories financial means will be taken. Now they are not consulting the municipalities at all, only when municipalities are seeing their accounts are blocked and unable to pay financial fees to economic operators or pay payments for services”, he said.

Ibrahim also stressed that so far, Kosovo municipalities have received over 210m euros.

“So far, the municipalities of the Republic of Kosovo since 2022 and by the end of June, i dealt with more than 210m euros because of judicial decisions where, in most cases, they deal with collective contracts. In 2022 municipalities of i dealt with more than 36m euros, in 2023 over 40m euros, in 2024 there are over 86m euros, this year at the first half-year there are more than 47m euros and the total amount is proving to be more than 210m euros”, he said.

Ibrahim also stressed that the central level has a simple way of solving the problem, but that this issue is not their concern.

In meetings that the association has had with the central level, mayors in the past have also given the proposal on how to solve (the problem). It is the creation of a budget line from the central level for covering the financial cost stemming from the collective contract and with budget line forecasts and setting that budget line in the Kosovo republic budget, which has not done that for several years, this issue can be resolved very easily, but the central level has not shown any willingness to solve this task”, he said.

For the municipality of Lipjan, Lipjan Deputy Chairman Diamond Bytyqi was declared, who told Kosovo that they did not receive any information from the Ministry of Finance about the reasons for the impasse.

No, we have no information, no paperwork was sent to us, and we have no information for what reason. We don't know if they're from the collective contract or if they've already executed them, they haven't even sent us a”, he said.

For the damage this impasse could cause, he stressed that “we don't know what categories have closed and we don't know what the damage is, but the damage will be great if it continues this way”. /Periscope/