Hadžić: Sarajevo Canton Government only criticizes Utility Company, does nothing to help us

Director of the public Sarajevo company Vodovod i kanalizacija (ViK) Nezir Hadžić accused the Sarajevo Canton Government of only criticizing ViK's management, but doing nothing to improve the situation in this public company, writes Patria.

Hadžić told a press conference on Friday that it is unfair to accuse ViK's management of being incompetent, while allocating just over 500,000 KM from the cantonal budget in 2017, whereas the Government supports other public companies in Sarajevo with several million KM annually.

The Prime Minister of Sarajevo Canton has been frequently criticizing ViK's management in recent weeks. He recently publicly offered a gift to citizens "who manage to get ViK". The Prime Minister also said that he would allocate money to ViK, but "they wouldn't know how to spend it properly". The company claims the Prime Minister's criticisms are unfair.

It was stated at the press conference that Sarajevo's water supply network is on the verge of collapse. About 70 percent of water is leaking from the system. To fix this, huge financial resources are needed, which ViK cannot provide on its own. The company's expenses are huge, and revenue is small.

From 1999 to the present day, the water supply network in Sarajevo has gained at least 50,000 new users, without a single mark invested in expanding capacity. The pumps supplying Sarajevo with water are more than 20 years old. They break down and consume a lot of electricity. Citizens owe more than 60 million KM for water, and there is no way to collect this money.

- Meanwhile, the KS Government, which is the founder of ViK, only criticizes, but does nothing to help us. For example, for 2017, the Government planned 582,000 KM for us, while it will allocate 7.8 million KM for Rad, 6.1 million KM for Park, and 4.7 million KM for Pokop. In the last five years, the Government has allocated 46 million KM for Rad, 56 million KM for GRAS, 37 million for Park, 28 million KM for Pokop, and only 8 million KM for ViK - said Hadžić. He added that he does not understand why ViK is in a subordinate position compared to other public companies in KS. He claims that ViK manages to maintain the water supply network with its own resources, with the help of the local community, and through the superhuman efforts of its employees, but he does not know how much longer it can cope with these problems.

The Government plans to secure funds for the renovation of the water supply network in Sarajevo from an EBRD loan. However, the project is already about a year behind schedule. ViK's management believes that the loan is not the best solution anyway. They wonder who will repay the money if ViK is unable to do so itself. ViK's monthly revenues are between three and four million KM, and the company spends about a million KM on electricity alone each month. In addition, it is repaying a debt it inherited.

ViK claims that five million KM annually from the KS Budget would be sufficient to normalize Sarajevo's water supply. However, for some reason, the Government does not want to give them this money. The Government is wasteful on unimportant matters, and saves on water.

Speaking about the number of employees in ViK, Director Hadžić said that the number of employees in this public company is declining. Today, about 880 workers are employed in ViK, compared to more than 900 workers a few years ago. The employees have also been reorganized. Two years ago, ViK had only five teams for repairing breakdowns; today, it has ten such teams. In some settlements, such as Skenderija, the network has been renovated, and ViK is starting to repair the network in other parts of Sarajevo, writes Patria