In July 2022, the municipality of Gjilan had selected the economic operator “Monuni” as the winner to implement the CNVR project in the municipality of Gjilan.

Despite the promises of cooperation from the Directorate of Agriculture in Gjilan, unfortunately in reality this “cooperation” has been more words than deeds, due to the inactivity of this Directorate to inspect the economic operator and to take measures against EO for nontransparent work and for attempts to not allow our organization to monitor the work. Due to this negligence, our organization has notified the Food and Veterinary Agency (FVA) several times, who have carried out inspection visits to this veterinary entity.

Our organization has also continuously requested from the municipality of Gjilan, access to the economic operator’s reports on the number of dogs treated during this project and has proposed to the Directorate in question to carry out a proper monitoring, since for only a few months work, the EO had received around 18,000 euros in the name of treating stray dogs. After the end of the project, our organization has requested access to all the work reports of the EO and in this aspect, the municipality of Gjilan has been uncooperative, in which case we have been forced to turn to the Agency for Information and Privacy (AIP), to demand that our legal right to access public documents is respected. Only after the intervention of the AIP, we received the documents of the CNVR project, in November 2022.

In the reports of the economic operator, we noticed many violations and false reports about treated dogs, which were in contradiction to the number of dogs present during our monitoring visits, as well as during FVA inspections.

Seeing these numerous violations, our organization has turned to the Basic Prosecutor’s Office in Gjilan, to present our suspicions of abuse of official position by municipal officials in Gjilan, as well as fraud with public procurement by the economic operator “Monuni”.

According to the latest information, the Prosecutor’s Office has made a decision to start the investigation, and we hope that this issue will be clarified to the end and that legal accountability will be asked for any violation in this project.

The municipalities of Kosovo should be taught that the CNVR projects require real and very frequent monitoring, to make sure that the dogs are receiving humane and professional treatment, and on the other hand to make sure that the public money (which is extremely limited in this respect) to be spent in the most effective way.

Until now, no municipality in Kosovo has implemented CNVR projects with proper monitoring and evaluation, which has resulted in ineffective projects in controlling the reproduction of street dogs.

We will keep you posted on any new information on this topic.