Rama: We've taken legal steps towards ministers Murati and Ceku, blocking our projects.

“Yes, we have taken legal steps for the minister of finance as well as for the Culture Minister. We are under way and we will alert you to steps in a row”, Rama said.

He said officials and central-level ministers have tried to block the development of projects in the capital, even with actions that, according to him, are illegal.

We were told that you are dreaming, that Dubai is not here. Besides, you just know how to run, no way to budget. When we did the vision, we carried out the projects, we tendered them and we came out to make it reality on the ground, they started blocking us even in illegal ways, calling into documents that do not exist, to block the development of the capital. I mean, that's not where we stopped. We have continued with work and also taken legal measures against officials and ministers, who deliberately have actually tried to block development in the capital, but will not have access to”, Rama said.

According to him, despite the Pristina budget being adopted in December last year by the Municipal Assembly, it has not yet been cleared from the central level, bringing major challenges to the operation of the municipality.

“We have continuing challenges as a result of the government's 2025 budget blockade. You know, on December 9, 2024, we passed the budget at the capital assembly and have been looking for the budget to be abandoned since then. This hasn't happened since government passed, it still doesn't happen. Now we have a reason from the minister in office that, due to the Kosovo Parliament's non-compliance, budgeting or aloation of tools has not occurred, he said.

He added that under the Constitution, in the absence of the new budget, it should be worked on that of the previous year, but also there are blockades from the Ministry of Finance.

And we're saying that even with the 2024 budget, we have many challenges now, as a result of the Ministry of Finance's non-co-operation, where they don't accommodate them, for example, as they have the obligation, one 12th of the budgets can accommodate each month. They're calling the budget line, they say it's 2024, it's not 2025, we can't land here. It means they don't accept the 2025 budget on one side, on the other if they have access to blockades, they accept”, Rama said.

He said that as a consequence of this situation, many companies contracted for projects have already undertaken final procedures, increasing costs for the municipality.

Unfortunately, as a result of the 2025 budget failure, we have contracts that started in 2024 and the rest of the year 2023, where even companies have continued to work, and we haven't had a chance to pay, because of budgetary lines, due to budgetary default. These companies have taken accounting measures that this even raises costs, has an additional cost, which is now paid by the capital and continues to damage budgetary lines, which are planned for key projects”, he said.

He accused the opposition in the Municipal Assembly, in particular Vetevendosje Movement, of blocking the budget since last year.

You see this side that these opposition parties, like VV, are actively blocking. They blocked the capital budget last year”, Rama said.

Pristina's chairman also stopped at the influence of blockades on the municipality's social programmes, saying citizens in need have been left without support due to the finance ministry's interventions.

“As a result of blockades, the ministry except that it blocked the capital's budget, so when we had the final cases they received from subsidies, for example they've taken from various points that were unable to pay citizens, who, for example, are in greater need of social welfare, citizens who need monthly subsidies, like 200 euros to buy food for their families. The approach of the Ministry of Finance has made it impossible for us and has left these people in even worse conditions than they have been so far, an unscrupulous approach, never before”, said of EO, Rama. /Periscope/