Columnist Lumir Abdixhiku recaps on the events of the week and claims that there were several stories on the news about misuse of public money and while these would have to make headlines in a normal setting, in Kosovo, people have become so accustomed to such news that they disregarded them completely.
The first news, recalls Abdixhiku, was how a Kosovo Government official used public money to fund her and her husband’s trip to Paris. The second report was about Kosovo’s Ambassador to Albania, Sylejman Selimi, currently in detention awaiting trial on war crimes charges. Selimi is alleged to have received his full salary during the nine months while in detention. The third news that spoke of misuse of taxpayers’ money is about the Ministry of Agriculture paying for purchase of tractors twice as much as the market price. Furthermore, it was reported that the Ministry of Infrastructure paid for maintenance of roads that don’t exist at all while the Ministry of Industry had kept secret the findings that the energy distribution network, KEDS, has installed reading metres that increased calculation of electricity consumption.
It was also reported that public broadcaster, RTK, awarded a two-million-euro contract to “phantom companies” who shared the same address and their registered owners were individuals that had no connection to the business at question.
“Kosovo today has no master. It has an utterly dysfunctional Assembly, a completely passive Government for control but very active in grabbing tenders at the finish line of its mandate, and has a prime minister who tolerates everything,” declares Abdixhiku.
In the week of scandals, prime minister of Kosovo promoted decrease of unemployment, increase of foreign investment and improvement of economic situation when the reality is that Kosovo has experienced major setback in the last years, considers Abdixhiku.
