Mandić: If it turns out the Director of VIK is not capable of leading this job, we will replace him

(Patria) - Minister of Communal Economy and Infrastructure of Sarajevo Canton, Srđan Mandić, spoke today about the situation in public companies in Sarajevo Canton. At a press conference held on Bjelašnica, he first addressed the problems in KJKP Vodovod i kanalizacija (Water and Sewerage Public Utility Company) and numerous irregularities during the previous management.

Mandić stated that after numerous obstructions by the former management, the new Government appointed a new management team for ViK about 15 days ago, headed by Enver Hadžiahmetović, who "immediately rolled up his sleeves and got to work".

Minister Mandić did not specify what qualities Hadžiahmetović possesses for this job. When asked by Patria journalists if he had spoken with Hadžiahmetović about the situation at the Public Utility Company Komunalno Breza, from where he came to the position of VIK director, the minister said he had not. Breza Municipality is one of the municipalities with the worst water supply.

"I have no doubt that Mr. Hadžiahmetović is ten times a better manager than the former director. I haven't asked him what you are asking me, I will ask him. Today he is at a meeting with the EBRD, he was elected as acting director, and if it turns out that he is not capable of leading this job, we will replace him. What he has started doing gives me optimism that we will have good results soon," said Mandić.

According to Mandić, the alarm that something was not being done correctly was the analysis of the budget realization for 2018, when they discovered 3.8 million KM allocated but unspent funds for the reconstruction of the water and sewerage network in Sarajevo Canton.

"You know what a catastrophic state that network is in. I immediately held a meeting with the then director and asked her why only 104,000 KM out of 3.8 million KM had been spent. I got the answer that their tenders were falling through. She said that they did everything perfectly, but their tenders were falling through. I asked how that was possible. That was the first sign that things were not clear," said Mandić.

He learned, as he says, that during discussions about the reconstruction of the facility at Hambina carina, engineers designed it without going to the site.

"They told me they had designed everything, but they realized in the end that there was a landslide there. So, someone designed it from the office," added Mandić.

The minister also spoke about the illegal connections of Hotels Ilidža dd Sarajevo and Hotel Terme, to which water was recently disconnected.

"We recently disconnected them from our supply system and subsequent checks determined that only water from a private well was in the system. Seven days ago, water meters inside the hotel registered a certain amount of water from the central system again, 250 cubic meters, and yesterday and today we again determined that the consumer is using water from the well, but also that they unilaterally opened the water at the valve where they were previously disconnected from our water supply network. Furthermore, the mentioned consumer did not allow disconnection at the connection pipe, and the ViK teams called the police. However, even with police assistance, we were unable to disconnect them," stated Mandić.