Debate about transparency and accountability in Podujeva Municipality

Podujeva, May 21, 2013 – FOL Movement organized a debate on the topic “Annual Work of Podujeva Municipality – Transparency and Accountability”. Panelist in this debate was Mr. Agim Veliu, Mayor of Podujeva. Other guests were representatives of political parties in the municipality, municipal counselors, chairmen of local communities, media and civil society representatives.
Fidan Kalaja, from FOL Movement said that “the purpose of organizing these debates is to promote transparency of local institutions”. In order to achieve this, today FOL is implementing this debate with the Mayor of Podujeva, and such debates will be organized in other municipalities of Kosovo as well.

The Mayor of Podujeva Municipality Agim Veliu, said that “whenever we talk about accountability and transparency, it is known that we talk about the budget, expenditures, investments, etc.” He briefly present the budget and its expenditure categories stressing that ” the budget of Podujeva Municipality for 2012 was about 17 million Euros, and although it is not spend 100 % we can say that a great deal of the budget is spent” According to him, with this budget have been implemented a number of projects where among them the investments in infrastructure, investment in health, in agriculture, in culture, as well as constructing 11 houses for social housing etc. “The most important is that in 2012 we have conducted 205 procurement procedures where no procurement procedure in Podujeva Municipality has been canceled and there were no complaints from competing operators because the laws was respected precisely ” said Veliu .

Nexhat Llumnica from Lëvizja për Bashkim (Unity Movement), said that the mayor is not fulfilling the promises made in 2009, particularly regarding the improving of the situation in education. He said that “there is still lack of schools, the quality is very poor, we have teachers who teach four different subjects, and the most concerning the violence in schools, where students are beaten by their teachers.”
PDK Municipal Counselor, Kadri Avdiu said that the lack of transparency leads to suspicions that there may be corruption affairs. Regarding the financial report that has been discussed in Assembly we have noticed some inconsistencies in the report regarding the last three months,” said Avdiu.
Naim Qunaku, also from PDK, said that as a “what’s to be concerned about, we consider, is the unpleasant situation for drafting the draft-budget, reports in municipal assembly, and there projects that have been realized without the approval of the assembly”. According to him, it is ridiculous that for three months of the year are spent about 280 thousand Euros for goods and services, while it is the same amount for capital investments as well.

Gallery of activity