Up to 100,000 property claims this year, predicts Housing Directorate

Marking the beginning of a long-term process of property restitution in Kosovo,  the Housing and Property Claims Commission (HPCC) handed down its first two decisions over residential property claims last week. The Commission's affiliate, the Housing and Property Directorate (HPD), meanwhile estimated that a total of between 80,000 and 100,000 such claims would be received this year. The deadline for filing is 1 December 2001. Since November 2000, the Directorate has received over 2,000 claims. Over 70 per cent are from refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have lost their homes, and who wish to return or transfer their property.
   
HPD passed on only a handful of unresolvable cases to the Commission so far. This is because  the primary means of resolving claims is through mediation rather than adjudication.  Legally processing all the claims expected could therefore take up to four years says Dan Lewis, the HPD director. "The HPD's intent is to create equal access for anybody who has a claim to property they lost for one reason or another, or that they want to regulate."
  
Since HPD opened its first office in Pristina on June last year, a second followed in Gjilan/Gnjilane in November, and a third is due to open shortly in Mitrovica. Alongside, mobile teams distribute claim forms and help minorities who cannot leave their enclaves and villagers with difficult access to the regional offices to submit them. Mobile teams are operating in such areas as Gracanica, Strpce, and Obilic. 
  
Much of HPD's work is comes in connection with the vast majority of residential properties that were abandoned by the legal owners during the 1999 conflict and were subsequently illegally occupied.  "Some people are illegally occupying 3 to 4 properties. They grabbed them after the war. These claims will flush all these things out," says Armand Forster, HPD head in Gjilan/Gnjilane.
  
Under UNMIK Regulations 1999/23 and 2000/60, HPD is also responsible for administering vacant properties which it temporarily allocates to persons in urgent need of accommodation.  For example, it recently granted a temporary permit to a disabled mother to continue living in Roma house that she, her husband and six children had been occupying. "By giving her a temporary permit we help her feel secure," says Forster.
  
The Gjilan/Gnjilane office opened for business at the end January. By mid-February it had received 7 claims and 10 humanitarian requests for housing.  Its Ranilug mobile team received 11 claims; Shtrpce - 27.  Mobile teams in the Gjilan region started in Vrbovac this week, in Gornje Kusce  on 15 February and thereafter in Kamenica and Gornje Noredimje.
  
HPD is particularly  concerned to protect the properties of minorities who fled Kosovo, by  placing them  under HPD administration. In one example, 130 such houses were occupied by families from a nearby  village who were simply seeking to improve their housing condition. HPD would start by doing an inventory. According to UNHCR, many minorities are returning and this cluster of houses could be targeted for their housing needs. 
   
Looking ahead Dan Lewis plans to establish offices both throughout Kosovo and in Podgorica and Belgrade by the end of 2001. He estimates that with 270,000 IDP's in Serbia and Montenegro, HPD could receive up to 30,000 claims there. "If people don't have a place to come back to, they won't come back. The process we're putting in place here is an assurance that persons have a right to return back and enjoy property."
   
Looking still further ahead, HPD is now training municipal housing staff to build inventories of vacant and abandoned properties. Says HPD Director, Lewis: "Gradually we'll delegate increasing authority to the municipalities once we're convinced the allocation process is fair and transparent."

TREPCA prospects 'reasonably optimistic': report expected soon

Trepça is neither the environmental and industrial disaster some international Casandras forecast, nor the golden goose assumed by most of its Kosovar protagonists, the final report of the outgoing Administrator, the ITT Consortium, is expected to conclude.

In addition, local press reports to the contrary,  ITT will not be recommending commercialisation along the line of the Sharr Cement works and other industrial facilities whose ownership is in question.  Nor will it give out contracts to operate individual mines to foreign investors.  Nor will it postpone reviving Trepça's facilities until a settlement is reached concerning northern Kosovo.

It is also incorrect that, while acting as the Trepça Administrator, ITT separated flotation operations from the mines-allegedly to convince Kosovo Albanians that the mining and industrial complex could not work as a complete entity. The apparent separation merely reflected the structure of the ITT metallurgical and mining teams.

UNMIK's intention is first of all to keep Trepca as a single entity-apparently the only viable option in light of ITT's preliminary report on last year's technical and financial audit, officials say. The main survival criterion will be that individual mines, flotation plants and the two metallurgical facilities will have to pay way their as profit centres. This will be the task of a  new Director-General and the Management Board already set up on an interim basis.

Briefs . . . .

Kosovo will participate in a region-wide programme of higher education reform, the Tempus Project. An education cooperation programme of the EU countries, Tempus seeks to promote higher education reform and assist participating institutions in establishing a common European higher education system. In its first year in Kosovo, it will focus on curriculum development, university management and institution building. It will also promote the participation of the University of Pristina in regional cooperation projects with universities of other South-East European States. Participating countries include Albania, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

A Laboratory Service Commission to develop a strategy and action plan for the provision of medical laboratory services in both public and private sectors has been established by the Department of Health and Social Welfare. Initially, the Commission will have members drawn from Pristina Hospital, Institute of Public Health, WHO and the Department.

The new political and administrative leadership of Pristina Municipality is considering proposals for a new administrative structure. A Habitat Project proposal builds on four principles practiced in European city management, namely strategic planning, effective inter-departmental coordination, monitoring and economic control. It envisages organizing tasks into "products" under a few well-defined departments, thereby rationalizing administrative procedures and enhancing transparency in service provision. The proposal also provides the setting-up of a municipal front desk to deal with citizens' requests and complaints and provide general information.

Municipalities' culture departments are preparing final salary lists for 2001 , following discussions with the Department of Culture, in which they were informed that it will be possible to maintain the core staff of 339 identified as being essential for the running of municipal cultural institutions. Such salaries will only be paid by the Department on the basis of written agreements from municipalities to allocate resources to goods and services in the area of culture.

The Co-Heads of the Department of Culture have signed a cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Culture of Albania. Discussions with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Culture paved the way for special working agreements between the Philharmonic Orchestra, the Shota Ensemble and cultural heritage institutions in Kosovo and their counterparts in Albania.

Italy's experts and managers from the National Agency for the Environment and some Regional Environmental Agencies will visit Kosovo in mid-February. They will collaborate with the Department of Environmental Protection in assessing the mountain of ashes generated by the Obiliq/Obilic power plants and help design a Kosovo-wide air, water and soil monitoring network. Both projects will be funded by the Italian Government. The group will evaluate technically and economically the possibility of undertaking  a partial greening of the ash dumpsites in Obiliq/Obilic as a means of containing air pollution affecting the Pristina Region.

The results of the KAP (knowledge, attitudes, practice) survey conducted by WHO on HIV/AIDS awareness among school children revealed that although the general knowledge on routes of transmission and means of prevention was reasonable, significant gaps still existed. For instance, less than half of those surveyed knew that re-use of needles or infected blood transfusions could spread the disease. Also, the behavior towards HIV/AIDS positive persons was problematic: eight of ten children surveyed would demand the removal of an infected person from the class.

All drivers should be aware that as of 1 March 2001 every vehicle must display a valid license plate . The only exceptions will be farm implements and tractors. While most of the drivers have registered their vehicles, there are still some who drive vehicles without license plates. Also from 1 March, all cars must be registered and insured. Any vehicle not in compliance risks being seized and impounded by UNMIK Police. There will be no more warnings, no more amnesties, says UNMIK Police Spokesman Derek Chappell. The average cost of registration is approximately DM 400, which includes compulsory insurance.

Some 500,000 English language textbooks are currently being distributed by the Department of Education and Science as part of a DM 1.5 million project with the British academic publisher, Oxford University Press (OUP). It is planned that 400,000 students will receive these free of charge. OUP will also send a group of English language experts to train local teachers and professors in teaching English.

Some 1,136 former combatants are receiving vocational training through the information counseling and referral service of the International Organization for Migration. They are learning electrical wiring skills, carpentry, plumbing, technical skills for reconstruction, and computers. A total of 593 have already graduated and received diplomas.

The Banking and Payments Authority of Kosovo is preparing for the use of the Euro in Kosovo , which will replace the German Mark, starting next January. Two committees, dealing with the technical and communications aspects, have been set up to provide for a smooth transition. The implementation of a comprehensive strategy will start before long.

Kosovo now has two commercial banks . The "New Bank of Kosovo" has received a final license from the Banking and Payments Authority to operate in the territory, after Micro Enterprise Bank. With a minimum capital of DM 3 million, the newly-established bank will be permitted to engage in financial activities such as receiving deposits, extending credit, providing payment and collection services, buying and selling foreign exchange, and providing letters of credit and guarantees. Customers can now choose between two banks, if they wish to open an account, make a deposit or apply for a loan. The New Bank of Kosovo plans to start operating in Pristina, with branches to be opened in other Kosovo regions at a later date.

The Kosovo Law Centre, in cooperation with the Finnish Human Rights Project and the UN Development Fund for Women, has held a seminar on alternative ways to resolve disputes on family issues . Although such disputes are often considered private, they can lead to abuse, harassment and even worse. Local and international experts made presentations on various interrelated subjects, such as cross-cultural and traditional aspects of dispute resolution and resolving conflict between spouses using both practical psychology and the legal system.

Arrangements are under way to process Temporary Travel Documents for about 700 Muslims who wish to travel for the Hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia . To date, 375 applications have been processed. All visas will be issued by the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Tirana.