Life in Kosovo discusses about emergency situations
Tonight, Life in Kosovo will broadcast a debate on the emergency situations in our country.
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Every Thursday starting from 20:30, Radio Television Kosovo, RTK, broadcasts the TV debate show "Life in Kosovo", a joint production of BIRN and RTK.
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Life in Kosovo debates public servant protests
11 February 2010 Life in Kosovo broadcast a debate on public servants’ protests in Kosovo.
On thesecond anniversary of Kosovo’s independence, civil servants – including police officers, doctors, prison guards and court staff – announced massive protests against what they call the government’s insufficient payment for the public sector.
The main questions asked were: Do these protests herald even bigger protests in the future? Is the government going to change on account of these protests? Is there a possibility that salaries will be increased, or is there no budget for such an increase? How can MPs increase their salaries but not those of public servants?
To discuss these issues and other related concerns, the following guests joined host Muhamet Hajrullahu in the studio:
Blerim Syla, a doctor from the Kosovo University Clinical Centre (KUCC) and a representative of the KUCC Union
Shpend Ahmeti, an economist from the think-tank GAP Institute for Advanced Studies
Astrit Gashi, editor of daily newspaper Zeri
Lumir Abdixhiku, executive director of Riinvest Institute for Development Research
Selim Thaçi, from the Ministry of Economy and Finance
It should be noted that Life in Kosovo staff tried to find representatives from the highest levels of government, such as ministers and deputy prime ministers, but none agreed to join in the studio debate.
To start the discussion, Hajrullahu asked Blerim Syla from the KUCC Union why the government has not responded to the protests. Mr Syla said that the government had not responded to meeting requests for three days. In Mr Syla’s opinion, this was a sign that the government is not interested in looking after the public sector.
Selim Thaçi from the Ministry of Economy and Finance said the government had only limited resources and was deliberately prioritising capital investment. “The budget cannot afford such demands,” he said. He went on to say that the Ministry of Health is trying to draft a proposal on salary increases.
Mr Syla responded that “we have listened to [the government’s] promises over and over again, and now it’s over, because these protests are not being held because of those promises, but are because of civil servants’ anger.”
He continued by saying that, despite meeting with the Health Minister and the parliamentary committee for public health, and having asked for a meeting with the prime minister to discuss their requests, the union have received no reply from the prime minister’s office.
Following this, Hajrullahu introduced a report by from journalist Jeta Abazi on the salaries of medical staff at public clinics.
Abazi presented the case of the chief of the KUCC’s surgery department, Rifat Bajrami. Having spent 20 years studying in order to reach his position, now receives €300 monthly salary. “I, departmental chief receive this amount. A surgeon’s salary is €276 per month,” said Bajrami.
Nurses have also expressed dissatisfaction with their €150 monthly pay. Rahime Kika, a nurse at KUCC, said “we are in a worse situation than families that receive social benefits.”
Mr Syla said that Abazi’s report was a realistic picture of Kosovo’s health sector. He accused the government of not caring enough about citizens’ health, instead “letting them struggle to find medication and people they know at hospitals so they will be helped, or forcing them to go abroad”.
“According to a World Bank study, €61 million a year is spent on finding treatment outside Kosovo, and another €80 million is spent on private health care in Kosovo,” Syla noted.
He went on to argue that the medical union not only seeks salary increases but also approval for new labour and health insurance laws, without which standards in hospitals and other state medical centres would never improve.
According to Shpend Ahmeti, the head of a think-tank, the GAP Institute for Advanced Studies, the government’s attitude to pay raises shows that they are working without a plan. “They are making ad hoc solutions, which is just like putting a sticking plaster on the problem,” he said.
Further, he claimed that the government has failed to introduce necessary reforms in the public sector, such as grading worker’s pay according to the time they have spent in their job.
Instead, they had awarded pay rises to doctors, teachers, and police differently, depending on who protested most vocally, Ahmeti said.
He stressed that the government would not be able to curb public sector unrest while it continued privileging cabinet ministers and deputies in parliament with high salaries and other benefits.
For 2009, Kosovo’s Assembly awarded parliamentarians a “healthy pay rise”, from €1,020 to €1,150 monthly. The rise was also backdated to 2008, which boosted the windfall.
“The protesters want change because, for the last 20 years, they have been promised a better life,” Ahmeti concluded.
Astrit Gashi, an editor from daily newspaper Zeri, claimed that the problem of salary increases has been around for a long time.
“Starting with the request of the president for a monthly salary of €3,500 – which is the highest presidential salary in the region – increases for just MPs, ministers and deputies, but not for all public sector workers, has made this problem even more complex,” he said.
Lumir Abdixhiku, from the Riinvest Institute of Development Research, said the government should have planned the 2010 budget better: “If [these doctors] protest and win a salary increase, every other group will do the same,” he said.
“The question is where the money for this will come from,” he added. “If it was available, wouldn’t the rises have been offered before the protests started?”
Abdixhiku said the government was hiking salaries and giving benefits to parliamentarians to divert attention away from major economic problems. “Of concern are the single source tenders [for public works] that involve hundreds of millions of euros,” Abdixhiku said.
He accused the government of spending its budget “irrationally”, such as putting aside €6 million for an international rebranding campaign. “Such frivolous use of the budget just angered people,” he suggested.
As part of the show, BIRN journalist Fatos Halili presented statistics on how Kosovo’s government manages the budget, compared governmental spending between 2007, 2008 and 2009.
This revealed that the government has consecutively increased spending on fuel, rent, marketing, and, in 2009, new furniture and the boosted parliamentary salaries.
At the end of the debate, BIRN researcher Faton Ademi presented the findings of a monitoring project on Kosovo’s judiciary, especially considering the dysfunctionality of the courts.
Life in Kosovo is a co-production between Kosovo Public Television, RTK and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN. It is broadcast every Thursday, starting at 20:20.
THE PROCESS OF JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS AND REAPPOINTMENTS OF JUDGES AND PROSECUTORS
The report on the process of judicial appointments and reappointments analysis the flow of this process, specifically focusing on the bright and dark sides that have marred the process to its final stages.
COURT MONITORING ANNUAL REPORT APRIL 2010 - FEBRUARY 2011
Court monitoring report is published as a result of a continuous monitoring of all municipal and districts courts of Kosovo. The findings of this report are based on the monitoring of 2,147 court hearings, by BIRN monitors.
THE PROCESS OF JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS
This report presents the results of part of BIRN's court monitoring project, specifically on the process for the appointment and reappointment of judges and prosecutors.
Follow the Paper Trail
\"Follow the Paper Trail\", a guide to document-based journalism in Kosovo, explains relevant laws, access to public documents, how to publish safely, where to find databases on investigative journalism, and how to locate documents online through various search engines.
Courts Monitoring Report 2010
A detailed analytical report about the work and administration of the courts in Prishtina, Peja, Prizren, Gjilan, Mitrovica, Ferizaj, Gjakova, Decan, Vushtrri, Poduleva, Lipjan, Klina and Istog. The report contains important information, collected by the network of monitors, placed in the major municipalities of Kosovo and aims to identify the key problems and issues that the justice system in Kosovo is facing.
REPORT: Monitoring the Courts 2009
Monitoring the work and administration of courts in Prishtina, Peja, Mitrovica, Gjilan, Ferizaj, Vushtrri and Skenderaj.
DIRECTLY ELECTED MAYOR SYSTEM IN LOCAL GOVERNANCE
The report on Directly Elected mayor System in Local Governance aims to provide a critical overview of the rationale and feasibility of the implementation of a municipal governance system that places the mayor as the central executive figure, during the third year of its application. The efficiency of this system was assessed based on the following pillars: the relationship between local government bodies, accountability of the municipal executive, respect for the law, the link between the mayor and the citizens, provision of public services (water supply and waste management, capital investments (in school and road projects)), level of transparency, public consultation and citizen participation in decision-making.
BIRN Report on Monitoring the Education System
Report on monitoring the elementary and high schools in Prishtina: Mitrovica, Ferizaj, Peja and Gjilan
Analytical report of the situation and the problems in the University of Prishtina
Report on Kosovo`s Healthcare System
Monitoring report on all primary, secondary and tertiary (University Clinical Center of Kosovo, UCCK) healthcare institutions in Pristina, Prizren, Peja, Mitrovica, Gjilan, Ferizaj, Gjakova, Klina, Decan, Istog and Vushtrri.
Situation and the Problems at the University of Prishtina
Analytical report of research into the standards and problems at the University of Prishtina. Ten years since the end of the war in Kosovo, the University of Prishtina (UP) continues to suffer from a variety of problems, resulting in persistently low quality courses being offered. For this reason, BIRN conducted research into the problems faced by UP students. The data gathered suggests that, out of the many issues reported, the most significant are: the non-implementation of contemporary teaching and assessment methods, the lack of practical work for students, the lack of appropriate academic literature, arbitrary assessments by
professors and generally poor relationships between students and their professors.
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The opinions expressed in Balkan Insight are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.
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