Novi Grad Municipality Sarajevo Ready to Take Over Maintenance of Public Green Areas and Municipal Waste Collection

(Patria) - Novi Grad Municipality Sarajevo is ready to take over the maintenance of public green areas and municipal waste collection, announced the mayor Semir Efendić on his Facebook profile.

He called on the Sarajevo Canton to pass amendments to the laws on communal economy and communal cleanliness in the Sarajevo Canton that would enable this.

"They are obliged to do so also according to the rulings of the Constitutional Court of the Federation of BiH, which long ago made rulings according to which the Sarajevo Canton usurped the competencies and affairs of local self-government and rendered cantonal laws invalid, obliging the canton to pass new ones.

For years, those who lead the Sarajevo Canton have refused to implement the rulings of the Constitutional Court, and the field of communal economy is sinking deeper and deeper into lawlessness and disorder.

In addition, we have requested this before, but no one heard us, that health centers, which include clinics, be transferred to the jurisdiction of municipalities.

All of the above has long been done by municipalities in most cantons of the Federation of BiH. Only in the Sarajevo Canton are they persistently fighting to carry out part of the communal activities that are not connected by common infrastructure, such as the water supply system, gas system, or public transport, where the infrastructure is in the territory of several municipalities, so it must be organized at a higher level of government.

In addition, the Sarajevo Canton is the only one in the Federation of BiH that usurps municipal revenues from income tax paid by the residents of those municipalities.

In all other cantons, income tax revenues belong to municipalities in a minimum amount of 34%, while cantons have a maximum of 54%, which is also a significant amount.

Only the Sarajevo Canton takes more than 98% of the income tax from the citizens of all municipalities, leaving municipalities a meager 1.7% of this tax.

I claim that with these few legal amendments, for which legislative bodies like the Assembly exist, the quality of life of the citizens of the Sarajevo Canton and all municipalities would drastically improve by at least 100% in every sense.

Until this happens, the situation in the Sarajevo Canton will not improve systematically and in the long term. We will have occasional campaigns when it will seem that everything is working, but soon after, we will return to the same situation," stated Efendić.