There have been active works on the problems of the Roma community in Gračanica for more than a year. The results are visible in their housing care, the allocation of construction materials, the regulation of infrastructure and sewerage network, as well as in the allocation of aid packages to the most vulnerable people, said Director of the municipal Department of Urbanism, Dejan Jovanović and Head of the municipal Office for Communities, Elvira Kesasi Hodža guesting on the morning program of RTK 2 this morning.
Reacting to an open letter from individual Roma in which they request the extension of Roma cemeteries, registration of these plots, as well as paving of roads leading to the cemeteries, accusing the municipality of not working enough to help this community, Dejan Jovanović, the Director of the municipal Urbanism Department, said that many allegations from the letter were not objective and the public should know the real picture of the situation from the institutional level.
“The initiative is not only to expand the Roma graveyard in Preoce, but also to fence and build parking spaces in front of the cemetery both in Novi Badovac and Preoce, as well as to arrange this access road in a period of three months. The question of the extension of the graveyard will most likely be found at the next session of the Municipal Assembly at the initiative of Mayor Srđan Popović”, said Jovanović, adding that two Roma houses were built in just a year, while two Roma families, Ramić and Demiri, have got apartments in buildings in Suvi Do.
“Also, four Roma families are on the list for the allocation of building materials, one street in the Roma alley has been graveled while the other was paved with asphalt. I would note that the three branches of the sewerage network were also resolved in this part of Gračanica during the past year. This year we will continue to organize the infrastructure in accordance with the possibilities and demands of the locals of Roma nationality”, said the Urbanism Director.
Jovanović points out that the accusations regarding the registration of these plots are not correct, pointing out that the Roma community had a representative at a high municipal position in the previous mandate for three years, and that was Sebastijan Šerifović, who performed the duty of the deputy mayor of the Municipality of Gračanica, and he had the opportunity to show how much he cared about his community.
“The plots on which Roma cemeteries in Preoce and Novi Badovac are located are the municipal property, but like all other cemeteries are registered as plots of public importance and there are many of them in the territory of the municipality. This is about the extension of the graveyard, and this will be solved in the future”, Jovanović emphasized.
In an open letter to Mayor Popović, Gazmen Salijević, a member of the “European Center”, said that the Roma community lived on the “margins of society accusing the system which discriminated them”.
Head of the municipal Office for Communities, Elvira Kesasi, Hoxha said as a guest of the morning program of RTK 2 that the Roma community exercised all rights as well as other communities in the territory of Gračanica municipality.
“Of course there are problems and we have adopted an action plan in which we have located all the problems of the Roma and Ashkali communities. In cooperation with international organizations and the civil sector, we are working on problem solving, but the biggest problem in this regard is the municipal budget, which is half the size of the population. The help by donators would mean a lot to us in that sense”, Hoxha said.
She expressed regret over the announcement that the Roma community would not participate in the program of marking the International Romani Day as a boycott.
“We, like every year, opened a public call in the field of culture, youth and sports. The practice has so far been for organizations that support the Roma community to apply and these funds have been redefined for marking the Romani Day. Such a wrong attitude will not contribute to the improvement and promotion of the culture of this community”, Elvira Kesasi Hoxha said and noted that one of the biggest problems of the Roma community was inadequate education, which was why they were not competitive on the labor market, and the level of education of the majority was the main reason why there were many unqualified people from this community showing on competitions.
