Višegrad still without a budget, mayor seeks dissolution of the assembly, majority announces his recall

By Ernad Metaj

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Since the local elections until today, the municipality of Višegrad has been a "case". Opposition parties from RS have formed a parliamentary majority, which the mayor does not recognize, and the citizens are suffering the most, because due to temporary financing, it is not possible to allocate funds for anything other than salaries and social benefits. Sports clubs and non-governmental organizations are not receiving money, and public companies are also in trouble, with salaries delayed for several months.

- Due to budget problems, salaries in our company are 2.5 months late, complained Bratislav Ikonić, director of JP Direkcija za izgradnju i razvoj.

Both Mayor Mladen Đurević from SNSD and the opposition are concerned about the citizens, but no one is backing down. The mayor, through the relevant entity ministry, and later through legal channels, challenged the parliamentary majority and does not want to put the budget proposal up for discussion. The parliamentary majority claims that only procedures were challenged, so they held another constitutive session and confirmed the earlier decisions on appointing the parliamentary leadership. As for the municipality, it is still without department heads.

- We gave him two seven-day periods to submit proposals for the deputy mayor and department heads, however, he does not respect that, but rather seeks new, even more substantively irrelevant omissions in the work of the SO, emphasize the representatives of the parliamentary majority.

They publicly called on the mayor not to use the goodwill for negotiations to reach an agreement on the budget and other matters of interest to the citizens. They claim that he was only interested in preserving positions for his loyal people in companies and institutions.

- We submitted the Draft Budget to the Ministry of Finance, we received recommendations and approvals, however, until the Assembly functions in accordance with the law, we are blocked. It is good that the law provides for temporary financing and that we will continue to be able to fulfill our basic obligations through that channel, which are primarily salaries, contributions, benefits for social categories, and other basic obligations," Đurević emphasized.

The mayor expected the authorities to dissolve the assembly. This did not happen, but Milorad Dodik dissolved the SNSD municipal board, after which it became questionable whether the mayor had the support of all councilors from his party. The parliamentary majority consists of 4 councilors from SDS and ten parties, each with one councilor. It is precisely these ten parties that dictate who will have more votes in the local parliament.

- Đureviću, considering that you requested a meeting with the SO on December 6th, based on our legal, written, and public initiative, which was constituted by electing a president, kindly bring that Draft Budget with you, as reasonable mayors do, and let's put it on the agenda and adopt it at the next session. The Ministry of Finance also wrote to you like that at one time, but you put that letter aside. If you had done that 11 months ago, we would have believed you somewhat, but now, nothing, the parliamentary majority told the mayor today.

If no agreement is reached, the parliamentary majority has announced the initiation of the mayor's recall. They claim that there will be more councilors for this, and that it is most honest for the citizens to say in a referendum what they think about who is to blame for the blockade of the municipal institutions' work.