Efendić sharply on Okerić: Anything is possible in a Canton where the president of the largest legislative body is the biggest ignoramus

(Patria) - The President of the Party of BiH and the Mayor of Novi Grad Sarajevo Municipality, Semir Efendić, addressed the public on social media tonight, dedicating a post to the Speaker of the Sarajevo Canton (KS) Assembly, Elvedin Okerić.

"Every now and then from the assembly floor, and from the TV SA screen, Elvedin Okerić, who has never achieved anything in his life, without any provocation, tries to devalue my work in the municipality of Novi Grad. He belittles, deceives, lies, and blunders, for reasons known only to him.

One of his favorite topics is the construction of roads in Novi Grad, and he has no idea that there is a categorization of roads of local, cantonal, and federal importance, and accordingly, an obligation, as well as allocated funds from these three levels of government to maintain and build the roads that belong to them.

The fact that the Municipality of Novi Grad and I, as mayor, have been participating in the construction of cantonal (and even federal) roads for a decade is not for self-promotion, but because these roads would not be built otherwise.

He cannot understand, even if he were in the Assembly for another 14 years, that what the Municipality of Novi Grad is doing is taking over their job.

Then he says that these are projects that are 80% financed by the Canton, not knowing that it is 100% the Canton's obligation, whose Assembly he presides over.

He doesn't know that he should thank the Municipality for the 20% it allocates from its modest budget of around 50 million KM to finance cantonal projects, whose budget is over a billion KM.

And of course, it's not 20%; on some projects, like the roundabout near the Gras company, the municipality's financing is around 60%, and the facility is cantonal.

However, more important than the financing itself is the engineering of the projects, from design to construction, which involves coordination with all stakeholders, landowners, public enterprises, conducting public procurement processes, obtaining all necessary approvals and permits, which is a job that the municipal investment service largely leads on numerous projects.

The Ministry of Transport understands this well, but the Speaker of the Assembly clearly does not.

And something else about financing.

The said criminalist does not know that the Canton of Sarajevo steals an entire budget from the Municipality of Novi Grad and its residents every year by returning only 1.7% of the income tax paid by about 43,000 employed residents of Novi Grad to the municipality, while the Canton takes more than 98% of these funds for itself, so that Okerić can distribute hundreds of thousands of KM to his party cronies who are presidents of citizens' associations in Srebrenica.

In all other cantons, except Sarajevo, municipalities receive a minimum of 34%, and sometimes 40% (for some municipalities in TK, even 80%) of income tax.

Or even simpler, and even more absurd. Cantonal law, and Okerić is the Speaker of the Assembly, which is the legislative body. The law on administrative fees that citizens pay when certifying documents in the municipal service hall.

Every year, citizens pay about 1.5 million KM to the Canton for administrative services provided by the municipal service hall. Municipal employees, municipal premises, municipal paper, municipal heating, municipal electricity, and only a cantonal stamp is affixed to the paper, and all the money goes to the Canton!

Over the past 10 years, just from the administrative fees paid by the citizens of Novi Grad into the Canton's budget, the Ninth Transversal could have been built.

We have asked the Canton dozens of times to change this, but in vain; they continue to charge citizens for what the Municipality does... Is that normal?

Well, in a Canton where the president of the largest legislative body is the biggest ignoramus, anything is possible. In that canton, gatherings of educators are forbidden, but parades are allowed.

This one who presides over the Assembly doesn't even know that it's up to him. He goes to bed and wakes up every day happily thinking that he has nothing to do with it. He unscrews bottle caps with his foot. That's why they started tying caps to bottles, because not everyone knows that they are unscrewed by hand," wrote Efendić.