City Hall cannot be opened to the public!

The opening of the City Hall, announced by the City Administration for Wednesday, May 14, has been met with a statement from the EU Delegation, as the contractor for the reconstruction of the City Hall building, stating that this will not be possible because the City Hall is still being treated as a construction site, NAP reports.

- Reconstruction works are still ongoing and the City Hall still has the status of a construction site, the statement reads.

It further states that according to the renovation schedule, all works on the project should be completed by July 4, 2014; if the contractor continues with the works uninterrupted and legal procedures for relevant permits are finalized, it should be possible to open the City Hall in a 'completed state' for the planned concert of the Vienna Philharmonic on June 28, the statement from the EU Delegation to BiH says.

Otherwise, the opening of the City Hall on May 9 caused a lot of controversy because occupancy permits had not been issued. The Delegation says that the European Union, as the contractor, with the full cooperation of the contractors, was prepared to meet the City Administration's request for a limited symbolic event on May 9, for which the building was open only for a few hours. However, the contractual obligation requires the building to be handed over to the owner and all end-users in a fully completed state.

The EU Delegation also takes this opportunity to remind that the actual beneficiary of the project is the Ministry of Civil Affairs of BiH on behalf of the owner, Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are a number of potential secondary beneficiaries, of which the City is only one, and they all deserve to have the building handed over to them in a fully completed state.

Our goal is a fully completed City Hall, according to the renovation schedule, which will then be available to all its potential users and all citizens, the statement from the EU Delegation to BiH reads.

We remind that, as Patria previously wrote, the City Hall did not receive occupancy permits, but city leaders Ivo Komšić, the mayor, and his deputy Aljoša Čampara rushed with the opening, not guaranteeing the safety of guests at the ceremonial opening on May 9, and taking credit for the renovation, even though the actual owner of the facility is the National and University Library of BiH (NUBBiH), NAP reports.