Protest call to solve water supply issues to be signed in front of Sarajevo Canton building

Starting Monday, September 11, 2017, at 10:30 AM, a protest call and proposal to the Sarajevo Canton Assembly will be signed in the park in front of the Canton Sarajevo building, urging an end to the silence of the authorities and for urgent measures to be finally taken to resolve the water supply problem in the city of Sarajevo. The protest campaign is organized by One City One Fight, the Eko Akcija association, and the civic initiative Fight for Life, reports the Patria agency.

- Water supply in Sarajevo has only been worse during the siege of the city. Daily reductions have been ongoing for years due to insufficient investment in the maintenance and renovation of the water supply network, as well as the protection of existing and securing of new water sources. Furthermore, the reductions, as well as the unhindered construction in water protection zones, call into question the quality of our water itself - states Anes Podić from Eko Akcija.

This situation is caused by decades of poor management of the public utility company. The responsibility for this lies primarily with all Sarajevo Canton governments and Assemblies to date, and their branches - the managements of KJKP Vodovod i kanalizacija.

Negligence has culminated in recent years when allocations from the cantonal budget for the maintenance and reconstruction of water infrastructure have been drastically reduced.

- We believe that the intention behind this is to hand over water supply to a private company through some form of public-private partnership, which has proven disastrous in most cities worldwide – services have become more expensive and have deteriorated. We call on the residents of Sarajevo to come and sign the open protest call to the Canton Assembly, through which we will send a message to the authorities that they have all the instruments to urgently solve this problem and that it is high time they used them.

Citizens will be able to sign the protest call from 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM, from Monday to Friday, in the park in front of the entrance to the Canton Sarajevo building.