„According to my knowledge, the plot given to the Kosovo MIA does not include the facilities that are part of the Vojni Remont. The facilities are not mentioned, only the land. That issue was raised immediately after we, as the Assembly, were given the opportunity yesterday to vote for the request from the Ministry of Internal Affairs,“ Nedžad Ugljanin, chairman of the North Mitrovica Municipal Assembly, said in a statement for KoSSev.
He specified that the decision to allocate a 27,400 square meter plot near the Vojni Remont site in North Mitrovica to the Kosovo MIA for „operational needs“ was included in the agenda at the initiative of the mayor of North Mitrovica.
Within the plot of the former Vojni Remont site, there are several institutions that function within the Serbian system, including the Municipality (the Provisional Authority of the Municipality of Kosovska Mitrovica), two public utility companies – Standard and Vodovod, a bus station built with funds from the European Union, a railway station, newly built sports hall. There is also an unfinished building that was supposed to house schools relocated from the south in 1999, as well as a school in the Romani language, the works on which were stopped this summer by the municipality of North Mitrovica.
„All those facilities are not mentioned at all, only the land. As far as I have seen, according to the plan, the land is around these buildings. All gaps between buildings are included in the plan. For example, the sports hall was built by the European Union and the administration. So there were no words of it being demolished and used for police purposes,“ said Ugljanin.
A police station will be built on that land, he added.
„Yes, a police station will be built there. The police have to move out of the building where they are now, I don’t know when. The facility where the police station is currently situated is under Trepca’s supervision and the OSCE has already left those offices.“
He understands the criticism that there was no public discussion regarding this decision, but he believes that „this is being done for the benefit of the community.“
„Why should we have done – not vote and leave the town without a police station? As far as I know and see, there is not only one community working within that police station“.
The fact that the media were not informed about the change in the agenda, Ugljanin assesses as a „technical error“.
Although, according to the documents, the request from the MIA arrived at the address of Mayor Erden Atić in the middle of the month, the MA was also informed about it only yesterday.
„There was speculation in the media that the plat was being looked at for the construction of a police station. We knew about it a month ago, but we did not know that a request would be sent to us.“
He then addressed the situation before November last year, when Serbs worked in almost all Kosovo institutions in the north. Expressing hope that the police station that will be built will have a Serb-majority workforce.
„After the ongoing agreements, even after the formation of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities, that police station will remain for the use of the people here, and we believe that the majority community will be represented within it. We did not vote for a station that would be represented only by Albanians. I don’t want it to be misused by the media,“ he emphasized.
The MA will now compile a decision and forward it to the Kosovo Ministry of Administration and Local Self-Government, which will then forward it to the MIA, he explained.
„They will share the reasoning behind it later. It’s not up to us to do that, we can’t do the work of the police,“ said Ugljanin.
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
