Residents of Klina accuse the cement company of fraud in obtaining the construction permit

Residents who oppose the construction of the cement factory in Dollc of Klina held a press conference on Sunday, through which they accused the economic operator Wallingford International Kosova of having cheated in obtaining the permit for the construction of the cement plant. According to them, this factory will not be built with green technology, but will work with coal. The representatives of the company have denied such a thing.

Accusations of fraud in obtaining the permit for the construction of the cement factory in Dollc of Klina have been directed by the citizens of this municipality to the operator Wallingford International Kosova.

Representatives of the Organizational Council Against the Cement Factory held a press conference in the village of Gremnik on Sunday. In it they said that the construction of this factory will make it impossible for the residents of the Municipality of Klina to live.

According to them, this factory will not be built with green technology. And they base this on the technical description that the operator submitted to the municipality in the permit application.

"In the technical description of the preliminary measure that we received from the operator, it foresees the construction of the coal warehouse with a space of 10 square meters, which means it is directly with coal, it is not as presented as a green factory", he said Veton Raci, representative of the Organizational Council Against the Cement Factory.

This was denied by the representative of the Wallingford company, Faton Ismajli, who said that the most environmentally friendly components will be used for the construction of the factory.

And, the citizens have also accused the company of distorting their comments in the public hearing, which was held in 2021.

"There are residents who have given objectionable comments, and their comments in the minutes have been changed, where they are presented as positive comments in favor of the construction of the cement factory", said Veton Raci, representative of the Group of Opposing Citizens.

Resident Faton Berisha, an ecologist by profession, qualified the operator's assessment of the effect that the construction of the factory will have on the environment as a weak and unprofessional report.

"The parts where the cement plant will be built are covered with self-sprouting grass, there is no scientific term that you can use self-sprouting grass... Here is google translate, the authors here are really functional illiterates who do not they know how to create a sentence", said Faton Berisha, a resident.

And, the resident Ibrahim Kalludra said that relocation is the only solution if it is decided to build the factory.

"I am 65 years old, I was born and raised in this clean air, now my children and grandchildren cannot grow up like me, they died earlier", said Kalludra.

In order to obtain permission for the implementation of the project in which 220 million euros are expected to be invested, judicial procedures are underway. Because of this, in May of this year, the Ministry of Infrastructure suspended the decision on granting environmental consent.