Initiative to Abolish Commission Fees in Novi Grad Municipality Fails to Gain Support

Following a session of the Novi Grad Municipal Council, Narod i pravda (NiP) issued a press release.

At today's session of the Novi Grad Municipal Council, the majority led by SDA rejected the opposition's proposal to cease the practice of charging membership fees for various commissions. Councillors from Narod i Pravda, SDP, Naša stranka, and Platforma za progres proposed an initiative to abolish fees for membership in various commissions in order to show solidarity with citizens during the economic crisis and achieve budget savings.

“Unfortunately, the majority led by SDA rejected this initiative in a specific way. As individuals from SDA, as well as some 'turncoats' who support SDA, could not afford to publicly oppose it, they defeated this initiative by pretending not to be present during the vote. Unfortunately, an initiative that could have brought about cost savings and demonstrated the councillors' responsibility was not adopted,” said Mirza Selimbegović, president of the Club of Councillors of Narod i Pravda. The councillors supported the initiative to publicly post the list of all existing commissions on the Novi Grad Municipality website, but they did not vote on the initiative to publish a register of all employees in the Novi Grad Municipality, as well as in the Public Enterprise “Lokom”, which Novi Grad Municipality is the founder and owner of.

Today, the councillors unanimously adopted the Draft Budget of Novi Grad Municipality for 2021, which, in accordance with procedures, has been sent for public discussion. Also, councillors were elected to the City Council of Sarajevo at the session. The process of electing city councillors showed that the 'foursome' has a secure majority in the future convocation of the Sarajevo City Council, but it also clarified some processes from the constitutive session of the Novi Grad Municipal Council. Namely, today, Alem Logo (NiP), Adi Škaljić (NS), Toni Vukadin (NiP), Enisa Spahić (independent councillor), Bajro Biber (BOSS), and Drago Jurić (USD) were elected to the City Council. The seventh mandate should be filled later, and that person should be from the list of Naša stranka, whose list has the highest number of votes. SDA, despite having 10 councillors in Novi Grad, did not elect a single councillor from its ranks to the new convocation of the City Council because they supported councillors from other parties. The 'foursome' had previously warned that a similar scenario would occur because some councillors were promised election to the City Council in exchange for SDA's support in Novi Grad.