You have to wait, the director is in a meeting. The director cannot meet with you now, because he has an online meeting. The director is not here today, he is in the field, but he says that you should contact the mayor. The mayor is not here, send an email. There are no other officials who could meet with you. Numerous unanswered messages, calls, and emails. These are the responses we received while searching for information in the municipality of North Mitrovica about the suspension of construction on several buildings throughout the town.
„We will have two and a half years for good and large projects. I can’t wait to welcome the citizens of this beautiful town and meet with them… We have started work, and I invite all citizens to come and present their problems, as well as the ideas they have, to our team,“ the new mayor, Erden Atic, said immediately after winning the elections on April 23rd.
The municipality of North Mitrovica has had a new convocation since the middle of December – a little more than a month after Srpska Lista, as well as the majority of Serb employees, withdrew from that institution.
Sixteen new councilors, only one of whom comes from the Serbian community – were sworn in on December 14, and the chairman of the Assembly of this municipality was elected on the same day.
In April, the municipality was constituted with elections in which the Serbs refused to participate.
North Mitrovica has a new mayor, the mayor’s deputy, as well as other staff from various municipal directorates.
Although almost the entire municipal staff was replaced, and they started their new mandate promising that this municipality would finally be at the service and work in the interest of all citizens – but this proved to be little more than the promise they made when they were sworn into office.
Neither the municipal employees who tendered their resignations in November nor those who took their vacated posts in December, have changed their practice when it comes to the media, as evidenced by our days-long efforts to get in touch with the director of the municipal directorate for infrastructure, Fatir Berzati.
Berzati actually picked up our call last Friday, which was the first contact between the KoSSev portal and Berzati.
He agreed to give us some information, however, since that day, he has been essentially unavailable for KoSSev.
On the same day, in search of information, we managed to establish the first contact with the new mayor of North Mitrovica – Erden Atic.
However, although he picked up the phone when we called him, once we introduced ourselves, a woman’s voice was heard on the line.
„The mayor is not here, he will pick up your calls when he can,“ said the. unknown woman.
These first „contacts“ with two officials of the municipality of North Mitrovica – were, at least so far, also the last.
On Monday, the municipal inspection department continued with the suspension of works on the construction of buildings in downtown North Mitrovica, but we did not manage to get a confirmation of this from the municipality itself.
Erden Atic no longer answered our calls, and neither did Fatir Berzati.
Berzati received and read the message we sent, however, no reply was forthcoming.
In order to obtain information, one of our journalists went to the North Mitrovica municipal building on Tuesday.
Despite waiting for two hours to meet with either of these two officials, who were in a meeting, the KoSSev journalist was unsuccessful in this endeavor.
The receptionist asked for her identification, which he then delivered to Fatir Berzati’s office, however, he told our journalist that „the director is now having an online meeting“, and that we should contact the mayor because he „does not present those reports“.
After requesting a meeting with the mayor, our journalist was told that he was not in the office.
The journalist came to the municipal building again on Wednesday, but that day, as she was told at the porter’s office, the director „was in the field“.
On the same day, the mayor was also absent, but he referred our journalist to his assistant.
After she explained why she was requesting the meeting, Atic’s assistant, Medina Pazari, told her to send an email.
The email we sent after that still remains unanswered.
The week-long attempts of journalists of the KoSSev portal to find information on the most popular topic in the town at the moment – the suspension of works on buildings by the inspection services of the new administration – ended with hours of waiting for the town authorities to answer our questions: How many constructions sites were closed, what are the reasons for that and is there any progress in the procedure for their legalization.
The practice of councilors from the ranks of Srpska Lista and the mayor’s office to repeatedly ignore media that were not under the control of the authorities, and refuse to provide basic information, continued with the new authorities of the municipality of North Mitrovica, despite their firm promise that things would change.
Yesterday, we sent another email to the same address with the same questions, this time referring to the Law on Access to Public Documents.
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
