Jovanović-Halilović resigns as director of the public institution 'Djeca Sarajeva'

More than two months after the poisoning scandal involving over 200 children in kindergartens, Mirjana Jovanović-Halilović has resigned as director of the public institution "Djeca Sarajeva", reports the Patria news agency.

She addressed a letter to the Management Board of the public institution Djeca Sarajeva, stating that among other things, she was prompted to take this step by the fact that more than two months later, nothing has been done to prevent such incidents from recurring.

She believes that the Government of the Sarajevo Canton lacked the will to address the core of the problem and take positions on key issues, namely a better control system and finding the real cause of the poisoning.

- I believed that the experts would help all of us ensure that such things never happen again, or that the consequences would be minimized, by raising internal control and prevention to a higher level. In just over two months, nothing has happened - Jovanović-Halilović stated in her letter.

She specified that the sanitary inspection report did not find any failures on the part of the employees of the public institution “Djeca Sarajeva”, so no one within the institution in the chain of responsibility could be sanctioned. 

- Thus, I, as the last in the chain of responsibility, cannot and do not wish to accept blame, nor feel responsible for something that could not be influenced and which clearly did not originate in the institution where I work. 

While fully understanding the public pressure to find the cause and culprit for the poisoning of the children, it is dishonorable to allow one person to be blamed while the real problem is covered up. This is supported by oral confirmation from the sanitary inspection, where I learned that under pressure, they had to propose a criminal complaint against me as the responsible person in their report, and fine the supplier, even though to this day we have a ban on procuring dairy products from that same supplier - adds Jovanović-Halilović. 

She hopes that the Prosecutor's Office, after gathering all relevant evidence, will deliver a final verdict.