UN RADIO IN KOSOVO

THE PROBLEM OF ELECTRICITY

By Zoran CULAFIC

Hello and welcome, from the Studios of UN Radio in Kosovo…

Kosovo Energy Corporation (KEK) management instituted new bill collection policies last December – they say – to offset KEK’s 200 million euro debt accumulated over the last five years. The end result has been electricity cut offs in many settlements throughout Kosovo - in the middle of winter.

Critics charge that KEK’s policy is unrealistic and discriminatory – citing high unemployment figures as deterrent to bill payment – KEK has said, they are not a social institution and the bills must be paid.

ATMOS…STREET SOUNDS

In Lipljan near Prishtina, some 1.000 Serbs have been without electricity for over three weeks – they have chosen the institutional methods to try and resolve the situation, to no avail.

For Serbs in Lipljan, this new KEK collection policy is a sly way to do one of two things: integrate Serbs into Kosovo Albanian society, or force them to leave – this according to 49-year-old Dragoljub Debeljkovic.

Debeljkovic

“They want simply to expel us from here, to force us to leave our homes … nothing else … Look at this street … all of it was inhabited by Serbs and we are still here … they want us out but we are not going to leave … That’s this area, with some 120 houses…”

In the first week of 2005, Lipjan residents protested KEK’s bill collection policy. Many at the protest said – politicians in Belgrade and Pristina are both approaching the issue from political angles, and that none is trying to find a just solution for those affected.

Momcilo Miljkovic said Lipljan residents hoped for debt assistance from Belgrade – citing the example of three villages near Caglavica who had their debts written off with donations from the offices of Serbian President Boris Tadic. This has not happened, and KEK has been inflexible on the issue, says Miljkovic.

Miljkovic

“They told us – you’ll have electricity when you pay it, but they did not provide us with a bill. And anyway, we do not have the money to pay. We are asking ourselves how long we can stay like this, or one day we’d gather our families and leave for Serbia … there is no choice for us.”

Farmers like Dragoljub Debeljkovic, also a resident of Lipljan, say - paying KEK is impossible without gainful employment.

Debeljkovic

“How can we pay while none is working … how to get the money … we are not allowed to go even to the farmers market …I’m a peasant, but I have all the products I m make. Still, I dare not go to the market to sell it. Who to sell it to here?”

Imagine performing medical duties without electricity? Malina Nikolic is a nurse in Lipljan Medical Clinic.

Nikolic

“There is no electricity and I have to visit some patients in their homes … giving injections under the light of candles … or battery lamp … and there are patients with broken legs, with gyps plaster .. I’m sterilizing cassettes and binding material in the kitchen-range … with wood fires …”

Wood burning stoves burn bright in the corners of Lipljan’s houses. Borivoje Vignjevic, deputy mayor of Lipljan Municipality says municipal authority has no weight in resolving payment issues with KEK.

Vignjevic

“What is happening with KEK is putting into serious question all the positive efforts made by those who wanted to establish peace here. So, I consider the policies very stubborn KEK behavior … just asking - money, money, money - People here are not employed for five years and they say, OK, let us work and we’re going to pay our electricity bills.”

Political will seems to be lacking from all sides involved, at least according to those who cannot pay their electricity bills. And, as Kosovo faces the first evaluation of the standards implementation process in a few months, critics of KEK’s policy say - darkness does little to motivate people towards the building of democratic infrastructures.

That’s all for today’s edition. Stay tuned as UN Radio in Kosovo brings you more news from the energy front.