Hamzić: City of Tuzla must do more for citizens, in the 21st century we don't have proper public transport, water supply, infrastructure

Interview by: Delvin Kovač

I can only proudly say about myself that I have never betrayed, and let my deeds speak for everything else, says the holder of the list of the People's European Alliance (NES) BiH for the Tuzla City Council Nedžad Hamzić.

"As the list holder of a team of people who love this city and want only the best for it, I can say that we will strive to restore Tuzla's splendor and spirit. To be a leader of change, to be a center of economic development, to bring people back to our old town, to be a desirable city for cooperation.

I am tired of listening to stories about some defenses, some attacks. It's time to talk about ourselves. Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer visits, friendly coffees, sincere gatherings. Support is lacking, envy prevails, and that is not Tuzla.

Tuzla is its people, Tuzla is all of us. In this campaign, we will not attack anyone, we will not be negative, we will offer constructive proposals because if we want change, let's start with ourselves, Hamzić announced on September 8 on his Facebook profile.

In an interview with the News Agency Patria, he commented on the work of the city administration and the Tuzla City Council in the past term, but also presented his own solutions to the acute problems faced by the citizens of Tuzla - water supply, road infrastructure, and the absence of public city transport.

Mr. Hamzić, how would you assess the work of the city administration, led by Mayor Zijad Lugavić, as well as the City Council in the past four years?

Hamzić: I believe that the city administration and management can do better and must be more open to citizens. There are improvements in certain areas, but it needs to be better. All services need to be at the disposal of citizens, all processes need to be digitized, procedures and paperwork need to be simplified, and we should look up to other administrations.

Regarding the City Council, I hope that the new convocation will bring new energy, ideas, activities, as well as the necessary changes and freshness.

What specifically characterizes your program and what will you advocate for if you are elected as a city councilor?

Hamzić: Regarding the NES program, as well as my program as an individual, I must say that everything is focused on the ordinary person, the citizen of this city, but also on Tuzla itself. I have never been a so-called populist; I have strived to work for the citizens, to talk to people on the street, not to hide after the elections. My phone number has been the same for years, and there is no one I will not answer the call of.

We have specifically directed our program towards the problems we have been hearing about for years:

- To ensure citizens of all local communities in the city a life worthy of a human being in the 21st century (complete communal infrastructure - water, heating, and sewage systems);

- Co-financing the purchase of solar panels and heat pumps to reduce city pollution and improve the quality of life of our citizens;

- To address the need for building construction, especially in the city center, whose construction negatively impacts the quality of life of our fellow citizens, especially if it is linked to the destruction of green areas, lack of parking spaces, and high real estate prices;

- To prepare and adopt a program for the development of green infrastructure in the city, given that we are facing challenges of unsustainable urbanization, degradation and loss of natural capital, climate change, and increased risk of natural disasters;

- To solve the problem of public transport in our city, and especially to ensure transport for primary school students from 1st to 4th grade from home to school and vice versa;

- To solve the problem of illegal buildings in the city area;

- Co-financing the renovation and replacement of old and dilapidated elevators in buildings throughout the city;

- Abolishing the 20% co-financing of roads by citizens in all local communities, especially since the quality of these works is unfortunately questionable;

- Procurement of fire ladders;

- Digitization of all processes related to city administration, public enterprises, and institutions;

- Control of all works and paved surfaces in the city to ensure their quality;

- Verification of supervisory boards and commissions for document acceptance during the execution of works to protect citizens' money (budgetary funds);

- Tuzla as the economic center of the Tuzla Canton, open to entrepreneurs, with developed business zones and shortened procedures, as this is the only way to retain young and educated people in our old town.

The election campaign started a week ago. Based on your visits to Tuzla neighborhoods and local communities and conversations with citizens so far, what have you concluded are their most pressing problems?

Hamzić: I must emphasize that I have been intensively visiting all local communities in the city for 10 years, in every season, not just during election campaigns. The problems have not changed much because they have not been solved, but we can say that citizens' awareness is slowly changing.

Citizens are becoming aware that it is the City's duty to provide them with quality living conditions, including, first and foremost, communal infrastructure (water, heating, sewage, road paving). This must become our daily reality, not big news. Among the pressing problems that citizens complain about, I would highlight the issue of public transport, water supply, and elections in local communities.

Tuzla, unfortunately, is not the only local community in Bosnia and Herzegovina struggling with water supply due to daily pipeline failures and its dilapidation. Why, in your opinion, has this problem not been solved to this day?

Hamzić: Tuzla has relatively well solved this problem in the last decade with a new water treatment plant. However, for the results to continue, the work must be continuous.

In 2013, when I was a councilor in the Tuzla City Council, Vodovod i kanalizacija (Water and Sewerage) took out an IF loan to permanently solve the water supply problem and to replace all asbestos pipes because they affect citizens' health. In return, we implemented an unpopular measure, an increase in the price of bills for our citizens. We agreed to that, but not everything that was promised then has been fulfilled.

In the meantime, we again have dilapidated pipes, losses in the system, which, to be fair, have been reduced, but of course, it can be better. The biggest complaint is certainly that some local communities in suburban areas still do not have a resolved water supply, even though we are in the 21st century. For years, there have been discussions about various projects and pumping stations in elevated areas.

For every facility located at an elevated altitude, a project must be prepared to bring water there, and if it's not possible, then the installation of pumping stations is planned. Depending on the number of inhabitants and the pipe diameter, the type of pump to be installed also depends. Although there is citizen interest, everything has stopped at the project stage.

It seems that Tuzla is a "dead end" in BiH because it has not a single kilometer of highway. Citizens and businessmen suffer the most from bad roads. Given that responsibility for road infrastructure lies at the federal level, do you think that the local government has not done enough so far to influence higher levels of government to finally change something in this regard?

Hamzić: Unfortunately, Tuzla is a "dead end," as you stated, and we are all aware of the importance of transport infrastructure for the development of a city, not to mention the economic development of the city. This is certainly one of the most important goals, as it affects the daily lives of citizens. We must all focus on the development of transport infrastructure.

The priority must be the transport de-blocking of the entire Tuzla Canton, and of course, the most interesting to us is the start of the announced construction of the Tuzla - Brčko - Orašje highway and the completion of the project for the construction of the Tuzla - Gračanica - Doboj expressway, as well as the Tuzla - Živinice expressway.

I believe that Tuzla should have been more open to other levels of government, especially the federal one, regardless of politics, because the interest of the citizens is more important than vanity and personal opinions. Now we have a political change at the federal level, the announced project of the Southern Bypass in Tuzla, which is crucial for us, due to relieving traffic in the entire city, and all of us here are aware of the traffic congestion problem we have. Whether it will be realized, we will see in the coming period.

Elections in Tuzla's local communities are still not possible because the City Council has not adopted a decision on establishing the electoral process for the councils of local communities. The City of Tuzla violates its own Statute, adopted in May 2021, which stipulated that within six months, the City Council would adopt a decision regulating the electoral process for the councils of local communities. However, even three and a half years later, no decision on how to conduct elections has been made. How do you comment on this?

Hamzić: Elections in local communities are something I have personally advocated for since 2012, and my team, who are candidates with me in the upcoming elections, share the same view. The local community is the base and should represent the link between the city and the local community. Of course, citizens should elect their representatives in local communities and the people who will represent them and advocate for them.

When the City Statute was adopted in 2021 as the most important document, we were all enthusiastic that elections in local communities would finally follow, as is the case in other cities. Initially, there were objective reasons for not holding elections because not all conditions were met. However, over time, it has become clear that there is no political will to hold them.

I believe that the new convocation of the Council will complete the task and adopt the Decision on conducting elections in local communities because it is in the interest of all of us.

One of the pressing problems facing the city of about 120,000 inhabitants is the absence of public city transport. Why is this so and how to solve this problem?

Hamzić: The problem of city transport is one of the biggest problems in this city, and it is becoming increasingly important year after year. Unfortunately, as is known, Tuzla does not have public city transport because it has been privatized. The City Council has been intensively discussing this problem since 2013, but unfortunately, there has been no progress.

As with most other pressing problems, discussions are held, conclusions are made, possibly draft decisions, and that's where it all ends. The problem needs to be solved, and solutions exist. Both long-term and short-term, and cheaper and more expensive. But the fact is that we have one of the most expensive transport systems, and the price of a monthly student ticket for Pasci is 120 KM...

Public transport is a local self-government problem, regardless of whether it is operated by a private entity. We have a monopoly on transport, and this monopoly needs to be broken. For years, we have turned a blind eye to these problems because we do not have any other carriers. Given that the City claimed to have no contractual relationship with GIPS, there were proposals to start charging them for bus stops, to bring in other carriers, and to offer them the same service.

Subsidizing monthly tickets for vulnerable categories (pensioners, disabled veterans, students). I still believe that a feasibility study for establishing a new public transport company for citizens should be done as soon as possible, and we should move in that direction. In the meantime, we can use all the aforementioned proposals to mitigate the damage done to our citizens and the suffering they endure daily.