'GIKIL is manipulating the existence of its own workers as well as the health of TK citizens'

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The Lukavac-based company GIKIL is on the verge of closure due to ecologically irresponsible and harmful operations. In this regard, GIKIL workers are protesting out of fear for their own existence. 

More than 650 workers of Global Ispat Koksna Industrija Lukavac (GIKIL) arrived by bus this morning in front of the BiH Government building in Sarajevo with the aim of preventing the closure of the plant. They asked the authorities to adopt a decision giving them another chance to work.

Nasiha Pozder, newly elected representative of Our Party in the FBiH Parliament, says on this occasion: “While fully understanding and feeling the betrayal of more than a thousand families who financially depend on GIKIL’s operations, I consider it unacceptable that for the past twenty years or more, the local and cantonal authorities of Lukavac and Tuzla Canton have not found the strength and will to develop a usable and clear, binding Development Strategy that would change the economic paradigm of this region and thus resolve the agony of both GIKL workers and the citizens of Lukavac, Gračanica, Tuzla…”

The competent Federal Ministry, as well as the FBiH Government, have left the problem of GIKIL and major polluters unresolved for too long, and I am not only referring to those in the TK area, where there are as many as three out of a total of ten in the Federation of BiH, and it is expected that the workers' dissatisfaction will be expressed today through a protest in front of this government building.

However, we must not forget what is truly the core problem, and that is the thousands of citizens of Lukavac and Gračanica, Tuzla Canton in general, who are constantly threatened in their health and lives by such an indolent attitude and tolerance of irresponsible companies. One of my most important tasks in my future work in the Parliament of the Federation of BiH will be to constantly remind the Government of this and similar problems and to insist on changing the vision of economic development of our society, and placing it in the prism of mandatory ecological and spatial balance. There is no economic development without a healthy society!”

The Municipal Board of Our Party Lukavac also commented:

“It must be clear to GIKIL workers and their union that the law must be respected and that there is no one in this country who will now, as has been the case in all previous years, turn a blind eye and allow GIKIL to continue operating with promises that they are ready to invest in projects that will ensure the continuation of production in an ecologically acceptable manner. They had so much time and ‘understanding’ from state bodies that they could have shown that they truly meant it, but the obvious fact is that they did not truly mean it or plan to do it.

On the contrary, through their actions, or rather inaction, they have clearly shown that they do not respect even the minimum of this country's laws, making the state bodies, and us, ignorant and a community immature for communication in the modern business world.

When we say they, we primarily mean the director Debashish Ganguly and the management who have broken the law and should be held accountable accordingly, and according to the statement from the Cantonal Prosecutor's Office, a criminal complaint will most likely be filed against the director of GIKIL for endangering the environment. It is also clear that the workers, whose actions we must understand as a struggle for existence, are a shield for the company's illegal actions, and the union, which should have spoken out long ago in terms of protecting workers' rights to a safe working environment and legal company operations, in this case, is a cowardly egg placed among the workers, in order to protect the interests of a company that has no address in BiH.”

They also call on the Government of Tuzla Canton to account: “All these years, the contract between GIKIL and the TK government has been hidden like a snake’s leg. Without delving into why, although we can all guess, that contract has not seen the light of day, and we believe that its disclosure would make everything much clearer and reveal the full destructiveness of such a contract, which clearly allows the managing owner to behave as they could not anywhere else.”

They also call on the government to urgently prepare a program for the care of about a thousand GIKIL workers who will lose their jobs when the company closes.

Furthermore, they believe that the local level of government can also do more than it has so far, especially when it comes to the possible consequences of the company's closure: “We also call on the councilors in the Lukavac Municipal Council, who recently adopted a series of conclusions that do not solve the problem in any way, but rather count as if they have done something, to hold a constructive session at which they will present steps to solve the problem if the factory is closed, because everything else is politicking.”