Prishtina Insight #107
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Opinion: Kosovo Lies and Dacic’s Good Cop/Bad Cop Routine March 15 - 28, 2013 Issue No. 107 www.prishtinainsight.com Price € 1 NEWS Suspicious Kosovo’s Spy Bonus Agency Put on Prompts Crime Beat Investigation > page 3 NEWS in Prizren Dispute Over On January 23, the Ben-Af Judges Delays supermarket chain won a North Kosovo Deal contract for 43,600 euro > page 4 to supply members and NEWS staff of the assembly in Macedonia Mass Prizren with a New Year’s Murder Suspects gift: 100 euro worth of Still in Kosovo groceries. > page 6 See Page 2 NEIGHBOURHOOD Remembering Kosovo Mulls Power and Djindjic With Love But No Optimism Phone Concessions in North > page 11 Chief negotiator says government supports having a Serb company administer power bills, and may legalise rogue CULTURE phone operators. Diagnosing Kosovo operating legally in northern make at the EU-led negotiations region, which covers northern By Bardh Shkreli Kosovo. but offered a glimpse of Prishtina’s Kosovo, was not metered - presum- Tahiri was responding to recom- vision for a solution to the restive- ably stolen through illegal connec- mendations from the International ness in northern Kosovo. tions. he Kosovo government sup- Crisis Group in a February report, She suggests willingness exists Residents and businesses in the ports having a local subcon- “Kosovo and Serbia: The Path To also to allow Serbs to keep some Serbian-controlled region largely Ttractor take over electricity Normalization.” form of autonomy under avoid legitimate connections to billing in the Serb-run north, > page 12 where illegal connections to the Part of the report addressed the Prishtina’s overall authority. the grid of the Kosovo Energy power grid are common, electricity and telecommunica- Corporation, KEK. Prishtina’s leading negotiator in tions disputes that have been a Power play: Most of their power comes talks with Belgrade says. major sticking point in ongoing either from illegal connections to Speaking to Prishtina Insight, technical talks between Kosovo The issue of electricity in north- KEK or from EPS, the Serbian Kosovo’s only English-language Deputy Prime Minister Edita and Serbia. ern Kosovo has been particularly state power utility, which operates newspaper is available: Tahiri also expressed willingness Tahiri stopped short of outlin- vexing for the Kosovo authorities. illegally in northern Kosovo. to enable rogue mobile phone ing specific proposals that the gov- In 2011, about 62 per cent of the Delivered to providers from Serbia to begin ernment has made or intends to energy supplied to the Mitrovica continues page 2 Your Door Fresh Row Hits New Turks Sound Wary Over From Newsstands Passport Contract KEK Upgrades across Kosovo The selection of new company to take The Kosovo Energy Corporation, KEK, Sent To over production of biometric passports for has signed more than 400,000 euro in con- Your Inbox Kosovo in the wake of an earlier scandal tracts to upgrade its distribution network – has itself come under fire. One of the los- just before it is due to come under the own- ing bidders, Cetis of Slovenia, told ership of a Turkish consortium. From Prishtina Insight on Tuesday that it is The largest contract, totalling 339,158 our partners appealing the 6.6 million ... euro, involves... business page 5 business page 7 see page 16 for more info is supported by: 2 March 15 - 28, 2013 news Kosovo Mulls Power and Phone Concessions in North from page 1 Contacted by Prishtina Insight, a repre- sentative from Calik Limak declined to com- Tahiri blamed the situation on residents ment about the prospect of an additional who have fallen pray to the “manipulations bill collector. of Serbia”. Echoing the suggestions of the Legalising rogue operators: International Crisis Group, Tahiri said the Kosovo government supports allowing a Meanwhile, Tahiri suggested the govern- subcontractor - presumably Serbian - to ment is open to licensing mobile phone handle electricity billing. providers that now operate illegally in But Tahiri said Kosovo would also Serbian parts of Kosovo. demand that Serbia “stop illegal interven- Tahiri said that mobile phone providers tions in the energy transmission system in could be licensed as mobile virtual network Kosovo and compensate for damages operators – MVNOs. These operate on incurred by the illegal use of transmission mobile phone frequencies belonging to pre- lines in Kosovo and compensations from existing, licensed providers. overloads. Kosovo has two MVNOs, D3 and Z- “On the other hand, this agreement will Mobile, which operate on Kosovo’s two open up possibilities for inter-state collabo- mobile networks, Vala and Ipko. The Kosovo Government supports hiring a separate power bill collector for Northern Kosovo to encourage more ration between Kosovo and Serbia,” Tahiri “It’s possible to license virtual operators Serbs to pay for their electricity from the Kosovo Energy Corporation. (Photo/Petrit Rrahmani) added. if the applicant meets the conditions as It is unclear, however, what the addition of provided by law,” Tahiri said. of Slovenia, Monaco and Serbia. “Accepting the code +3815 as a temporary a subcontractor would mean for the forth- The International Crisis Group report Naim Rashiti, an analyst with the solution would save Kosovo a great deal of coming privatisation of Kosovo’s power also urged Kosovo to accept Serbia’s sug- International Crisis group, said Kosovo money in tariffs that it’s paying to Monaco grid. gestion to adopt the phone country code stands little chance of getting its own code. and Slovenia to use their mobile telephone In May, the Turkish-owned Kosovo Calik +3815, which is Serbia’s country code, plus This is because membership of the codes,” Rashiti said. Limak Energy consortium assumes owner- 5. International Telecommuni cations Union Tahiri, however, remained firm that ship of KEK’s distribution network and will Kosovo lacks its own country code and is largely contingent on UN membership, Kosovo must have its own separate country start collecting power bills. phone numbers currently use the prefixes which Kosovo has yet to obtain. code, distinct from Serbia’s. Kosovo Serbs Urged to Aid Bombing Probes As Serbia and Kosovo leaders meet the EU High Representative to mull solutions for the Serb-run north of Kosovo, the EU law mission has urged Serbs in the area to cooperate with probes into recent bomb attacks. flict in the late 1990s, the north of Kosovo has been beyond the de facto control of the Kosovo govern- By Prishtina Insight ment, while Serbia has continued to Prizren Municipality gave its employees 100 euro in groceries as a New Year’s gift. finance local security, judicial, health and educational institutions. ernd Borchardt, head of the While Kosovo wants Serbia to EU rule of law mission, dismantle its so-called "parallel" Suspicious Bonus Prompts EULEX, has urged Serbs in B structures in the north, Serbia the Serb-run northern part of insists on broad autonomy being Kosovo to cooperate more closely offered for all Serb-populated areas Investigation in Prizren with EULEX and Kosovo Police in in Kosovo first. finding the perpetrators of recent The seventh meeting of the Regulator says contract to provide municipal leaders and staff with free groceries violat- bomb attacks. prime ministers of Kosovo and ed procurement law. “No police service can be suc- cessful without cooperation and Serbia, taking place within the Procurement Regulatory from the session. the help of the whole of society,” framework of the EU-mediated dia- Commission, said. “No supplying, The next day, on December 28, the Borchardt said. logue, will be on March 20 in work or service can be first done municipality placed a notice, call- He said EU and Kosovo police had Brussels. before [tender] procedures are fol- ing for bidders to supply the gro- By Petrit Kryeziu significantly increased their pres- Dacic and Thaci are expected to lowed.” ceries. Bidding officially closed on ence in the northern part of the flesh out the modalities of disman- Abdullah called the contract a January 7. Ben-Af appears to have town of Mitrovica owing to the fre- tling Serbian-financed "parallel" “serious violation of procurement been the sole bidder. n January 23, the Ben-Af quency of bomb attacks. institutions in the Serb-run north law.” Municipal spokesman Ymer supermarket chain won a “Every night, together with of Kosovo and discuss the future The acting head of Prizren’s pro- Berisha defended the New Year’s Ocontract for 43,600 euro to members of Kosovo police, we operations of an "Association of supply members and staff of the curement office, Alban Susuri, said bonus, saying that “we acted search certain motor vehicles and Serbian Municipalities" in Kosovo, assembly in Prizren with a New he was also surprised that the con- according to decision-making pro- question individuals," he said. which the Kosovo authorities have Year’s gift: 100 euro worth of gro- tract with Ben-Af was apparently cedures”. Since the end of the Kosovo con- agreed to endorse. ceries. put into effect before it was award- Only one of the 41 members of The trouble was that many public ed. the assembly, Kimete Hoxha, voted servants in the city had already He noted that although Ben-Af against the bonus, telling Prishtina taken advantage of the gift weeks wonder the tender, the contract has Insight that the assembly ought to earlier, and had presented their gov- yet to take effect because the munic- have done something to help needy ernment IDs at Ben-Af stores to get ipality doesn’t have the money to families instead. the free groceries. pay for it. Revelations of the legally suspect The Public Procurement Ben-Af ’s legal officer, Besnik contract come as Prizren faces a Regulatory Commission is now Kuqi, said his company won the corruption scandal.