Deputy Prime Minister Azra Jasavić was in Rožaj yesterday
Unemployment and the way forest resources are used are a serious problem.
The Vice-President of the Government, Azra Jasavić, and the President of the Municipality of Rožaje, Ejup Nurković, at the meeting held in Rožaje, concluded that the biggest problem in this municipality is huge unemployment, which manifests itself especially among young people, but also that the issue of fees for concessions on forest resources must be changed define so that the municipalities would benefit more from it. Nurković said that unemployment is a consequence of the transition and that the local administration has a plan to solve that problem.
- The local administration has projects to hand over the former factories together with the Government to strategic partners in order to reduce unemployment. In cooperation with the Government, we enabled the start of part of the production in "Upper Ibro", and we are currently working on finding a strategic partner for the water factory. I asked Jasavić to raise the issue in the Government, that local administrations and inspection bodies have greater authority in exercising control over the granting of concessions, and participation in commissions, as well as control on the ground during the extraction of forest assortments - said Nurković, emphasizing that neither state nor local inspections they do not perform quality control in the forests, which creates enormous damage through the collapse of infrastructure.
He pointed out the problem of purchasing surplus agricultural products as an obstacle to the development of agriculture, and he sees the uncontrolled import of milk and milk products as a problem.
Jasavić said that out of over 1,900 unemployed residents of Rožaj, 30 percent are young people under 30 years old.
- This is a noticeable problem that will most certainly cause new migrations and new emigrations of the young and qualified population in the future. Both the municipality and the government must focus on this problem. The priority should be the development of small and medium-sized enterprises and the economy of Rožaj, and in order to achieve something, there must be good and efficient cooperation between the Government and local self-government - said Jasavić, stressing that the method of awarding and collecting concessions represents a serious obstacle in the development of the municipality of Rožaj.
-The huge forest area, which is the greatest wealth of Rožaj, has been devastated, and the concession fees are worryingly small. It is necessary for the Government to prepare a set of legal changes and strengthen the normative infrastructure and to bring together the Ministry of Agriculture, the Forestry Administration and the municipalities in a high-quality manner so that they have an accurate view of how many concessions are allowed, so that they can plan revenues from it. It is a well-known fact that after the equalization fund, concession fees are the biggest source of income. In order for this compensation to be higher, it is necessary for the municipalities to know how many concessions are issued - warns Jasavić, stressing that the neoliberal concept of the economy is unsustainable and the state must assume much greater authority in the process of employment and investment.
- The Government has taken over a large number of ingenuities from local self-governments and thus reduced the fiscal capacities of municipalities. The government must distribute funds to all municipalities in a much better and more equal way. Montenegro needs a serious economic turnaround and a departure from the neoliberal economy, which created a huge stratification among the population and created a huge number of poor people and a very small number of rich people, whose wealth, or poverty, is multiplying daily. That is why Montenegro must make changes if we want to create a society of social justice and a society that thinks about every citizen - Jasavić said.
Vice President Jasavić, as part of her working visit to Rožaj, visited the recently privatized Lamelirnica factory and visited the NGO "Let's make life easier for children with special needs".
Written by: Mirza Luboder
