NGO ‘’Prehja’’ supported by CBM, publishes monitoring report for Skenderaj Municipality

Supported by Community Building Mitrovica, NGO Women Center ‘’Prehja’’ one of the grantees within the project “Civil Society is watching you: demand for accountability and transparency on local level” organized public debate for the publication of the monitoring report with theme ‘’Increase of transparency in Skenderaj Municipal Assembly and monitoring of the communal budget’’. Present in this round table were: vice-principal of the Skenderaj Municipality Mr.Fadil Nura, chairman of the Skenderaj Municipality Mr.Ismet Salihu, executive director of CiviKos platform Ms.Valdete Idrizi, members of the Municipal Assembly and other representatives of different political parties, civil society and media.

This open debate came as result of the five month monitoring process of the Skenderaj local institutions conducted by  NGO ‘’Prehja’’, under the guidance of Community Building Mitrovica.

Good Governance Program Manager in CBM Ms.Florentina Hajdari Hajra opened the round table by briefly presenting the project “Civil Society is watching you: demand for accountability and transparency on local level” and the monitoring report completed by ‘’Prehja’’. Following Mr.Milazim Mustafaj from NGO ‘’Prehja’’ informed the audience more in details about the working process and findings of the report. As main issues raised in the report presented by Mr.Mustafaj were: lack of connection of several villages with sewage and water supply system, lack of transparency by local institutions especially when it comes to the access of Municipality official documents, etc. But as mentioned from the NGO ‘’Prehja’’ representative there has been improvements and progress.

Mr. Fadil Nura, vice-principal of the Skenderaj Municipality during his word initially agreed with the fact that there are still villages that are not connected with the sewage and water supply system but the Municipality is working in that direction, while when it comes to the access in the official documents only one from seven requests for access was disregarded. Nevertheless vice-principal welcomed the recommendations included in the monitoring report although as he said, would like the report to be more detailed.

Further contribution in this debate was give also by the chairman of the Skenderaj Municipal Assembly that shared his opinion over the findings of the report, Ms.Idrizi that spoke about the practices and experiences of CiviKos platform with public institutions, and other participants who gave their input on the report. 

“Civil Society is watching you: demand for accountability and transparency on local level” is EU funded project managed by European Union Office and co-founded by Austrian Development Agency, The Netherlands Embassy in Pristina and MOTT Foundation, while implemented by Community Building Mitrovica and Center for Resources Youth and Media Coalition.