Interview: Vladeta Kostic, newly elected Mayor of Gračanica/Graçanicë

Newly elected Mayor of Gračanica/Graçanicë , Vladeta Kostic, who won convincing 65 per cent of votes as a candidate of ‘Srpska’  at recent mayoral elections pledges to fight for new jobs and improving living conditions.  In his interview to ‘Politika’ he said that during his term in office his plan is that works on construction of the hospital in village Novi Badovac are accomplished  and that ambitious project of construction of a secondary-education center is finished, with the goal to relieve the schools, which are currently attended by students in two shifts, and some in even three.

“I was the local councilor of the local self-government for a long time and I know very well what kind of problems are citizens of Gračanica faced with. I will pursue the policy of my predecessor Branimir Stojanovic, who is now the Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo, and I will have two priorities: continuity in terms of improving work conditions in elementary and secondary schools, and in health institutions. We did a lot in the previous period in terms of reconstruction of schools, and from that reason health sector comes first now and our goal is to rise the quality of services,” stressed Kostic.

Are there sufficient funds in the budget for planned activities? Our budget is EUR 6 million and for sure that there would be more funds in the budget in case that local Serbs didn’t boycott the census called by than Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija. The problem is that budgets in Kosmet are projected on the basis of a number of citizens, and as far as it is up to ourselves, we are planning to start a political struggle in order to have additional census, at least for Serb-majority municipalities, in order to have clear picture of how many Serbs there are, whereas in the same time municipalities would be able to receive much bigger funds.

Why do you think that Pristina would meet your request to carry out additional census? Everyone has noticed that, when it comes to Gračanica, there are several illogical things. For example, Gračanica officially has around 20.000 inhabitants, and same number of names and surnames in the voters' register, what is illogical and leads to a small confusion when elections are called. Exactly due to those illogicalities I think that they will meet our request for having the additional census.

To what extent is announced ‘nationalization’ of Trepca influencing economic projects in Gracanica? I am convinced that problem of Trepca will be resolved through the dialogue in Brussels, for mutual satisfaction. For us in Gračanica is also important that the issue of property of the Republic of Serbia on the territory of Gračanica will finally start to be dealt with, since there are several socially owned enterprises here which are under the jurisdiction of the Privatization Agency of the Republic of Serbia. That is an obstacle to us for having talks with potential investors, because the legal status of certain parcels and premises has not being settled.

How many enterprises and premises there are in Gračanica under the jurisdiction of the Privatization Agency of the Republic of Serbia? We have the commercial enterprise ‘Vocar’, agricultural cooperative ‘Ratar’ and the mine ‘Kisnica’ which might be under the management of ‘Trepca’, i.e.  ‘Ratar’ has very fertile land in many settlements and parcels where is easy to bring a quality infrastructure, what could create positive ambient for potential investors in order that we finally get work places in the real sector in Serb settlements in Kosmet.

During the recent visit to Gračanica of the Prime Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, it was said that allocated funds from the Serbian budget didn’t yield concrete results. Where is the problem? There were problems before because due to insufficient communication, and we used to receive funds from both, the Serbian budget and from the Kosovo provincial budget, for the same projects. Situation is different and we can now agree what amount of money will be allocated from the municipal budget, how much form the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, and how much from Pristina. The most important thing for us is to invest as much funds as possible in the development of Gračanica in order to rise the quality of life of citizens.