Committee finds funds for Kosovo were misused

Committee finds funds for Kosovo were misused

Eight committee members voted in favor of adopting the report on Monday, four abstained, and one delegate was against. The committee, however, did not deal with one of the biggest robberies of the budget - the smuggling between Serbia and Kosovo.

"Arrogance and irresponsibility that borders on insolence in the spending of budgetary funds of the Republic of Serbia", that is how Momir Stojanović, president of the committee, described some of the abuses of funds intended for the most vulnerable in Kosovo.

The committee found that from 2000 until 2012 RSD 53 million were going to Kosovo daily without adequate checks. The result are paid for, but never finished building, unfinished roads, financial abuse in health-care that assumed alarming proportions, projects that were overpaid and questionable procurement that cost millions of euros.

"This report is not directed against our people in Kosovo who live in very difficult existential and security conditions but rather at those who got rich through different misbehavior and abuses," said Stojanović.

Marko Jakšić from the opposition Democratic Party of Serbia, who opposed the establishment of the committee, said that the investigation into the spending of funds earmarked for Kosovo was directed precisely against the Serb people in that area.

"We have had, so to speak, a whole barrage of media attacks about the spending, more with a view of, and as preparation primarily aimed at completing the statehood of Kosovo and Metohija. We are all aware that stealing, thievery and everything else occurs everywhere in the state of Serbia," Jakšić said.

Some in the opposition pointed out that the committee was late to adopt the report, as the deadline passed in mid-September. In addition, the parliament that set up the commission has in the meantime been dissolved.

"It is important to determine finally also the political responsibility for what happened because I do not believe that some director of a health center can be the most responsible, or the secretary of state for labor and social policy. There is certainly their responsibility but we probably should also have checked with the minister," Ivan Jovanović of the DS was quoted as saying.

Although it was part of its mandate, the committee did not look into the smuggling on the boundary with Kosovo, and thus did not establish misuse of the Regulation on VAT Exemption, which the citizens of Serbia watched in the series "Patriotic Robbery", and on which individuals in Kosovo and also in Serbia built business empires.

Zoran Ostojić, independent MP, asked why "oil was not mentioned at all, and we remember that was such a big story."

The report is not sufficient for an investigation, but, if it is adopted by the new parliament it will serve as a recommendation to the government to conduct an investigation and appear before MPs with the results within a year.