AKK: municipalities to be damaged over 150m euros this year

Ibrahim in an interview for Online Economics, has said that during the first quarter of this year alone, municipalities have been taken over 60m euros from judicial decisions, most of which are related to collective contracts.

This year, 2026, is the worst financial year for municipalities in the Republic of Kosovo. Financial means are being taken unjustly to all municipalities in the Republic of Kosovo, indiscriminately. In the first six months of this year alone, municipalities from judicial decisions -- most of them related to collective contracts -- have received over 60m euros”, he said.

Ibrahimi said another financial burden for municipalities would also be the failure of the Ministry of Finance to act on the Constitutional Court in terms of the experience of public servants' work.

“Now, the rest is where Romanian Minister Murati has not implemented a Constitutional Court act in terms of the labour experience rate, where the Constitutional Court has said that the labour experience rate should be paid 0.5% per year. And Minister Murati has implemented the rate of 0.25% of work experience since the beginning of 2023, 2024, 2025, for public servants. And now, based on the information we have from the local level, the number of public servants at the local level, which will be caused by municipal municipalities or municipal budgets, because Minister Murati has not implemented that Constitutional Court trial, will be approximately 60 million euros”, he said, for Online Economy.

According to him, municipalities will also face a reduction of the specific grant to education.

“Add this to the recent decision of the Government of the Republic of Kosovo, where the specific grant for education is to be reduced for municipalities of around 24m euros, where over 3,000 local-level teachers will be paid by the municipalities of the Republic of Kosovo, and the value will be around 24m euros”, he said.

Ibrahim also criticised the decision by halving the performance grant for the profitable municipalities.

“Minister of Local Powers made the decision, or Government of the Republic of Kosovo made the decision that the grant for performance, which has been dedicated to the 2026 Business Divisions Law, has been 4m euros. But illegally they halved this grant and decided that instead of 4m euros it would be 2m euros. That means the damage to five profitable municipalities is about 2m euros. In total this year -- based on our accounts -- it turns out that municipalities will be financially damaged by over 86m euros. I recovered from all four almost major damage which the central level has caused the local level from the financial aspect of”, he said.

He warned that most of these vehicles will be seized by capital investments, subsidies and goods and services.

And now imagine, the absolute majority of these tools will be obtained by capital investments, subsidies, goods and services, and what the mayors of municipalities will be able to invest in their respective municipalities. So if you continue such a trend and if you continue a total central level responsibility against municipalities, very soon municipalities can become administrative units that will have no financial means for capital investments, goods, services and subsidies, and will only be responsible for distributing birth certificates and other certificates. So this is a huge damage which is causing municipalities deliberately and knowingly”, he said.

Ibrahimi said the central level is carrying financial responsibilities that do not stem from their decisions.

And considering that collective contracts are not signed by municipalities, but by the central level, then this is also the institutional responsibility of the central level. 24m euros, which municipalities will be obliged to share for teachers, has had to become a strategy for the scale-scale to be eliminated or downplayed. But the central level has taken arbitrably the decision that these 24m euros municipalities should share to cover the cost of teachers who are on contracts”, he said.

He added that the financial consequences would also be exacerbated by additional costs of judicial and final procedures.

You can't break the unilateral and arbitrary contract with a teacher because that teacher will use legal procedures and benefit those financial tools. But besides what it benefits, lawyers and bookgoers will get a percentage of 30%. Also, this percentage of lawyers, court procedures and magistrates is the same for failing to implement the Constitutional Court's decision on the work experience rate from 0.05 to 0.5%. That is, except that the municipal budget is being damaged, the state budget is being damaged because the response, institutional responsibility is missing and, in general, the mayors are complaining that they will not have financial means for implementing projects that they have envisioned with municipal budgets that were approved in September last year for this year”, he said.