Pristina residents will be billed twice for waste

Pristina citizens will be billed twice for waste collection this month.

The company "Pastrimi" has announced that from January 1st it has started collecting invoices, which has been done so far by the Municipality of Pristina.

However, even this is not giving up these revenues, although there is a decision of the municipal assembly of December last year, that these powers are transferred to the "Pastrimi" company with the amendment and supplementation of the waste management regulation.

The Director of Public Services, Bekim Brestovci, says that he does not see the municipal assembly's decision, which was taken by the opposition, PDK and VV, as legitimate.

"I apologize to the citizens who are facing confusion because it is true that 'Pastrimi', citing the changes to the regulation made by the municipal assembly, has started collecting invoices for 2025, while we as a municipality, due to legal uncertainty, have not stopped regenerating invoices for 2025. We are doing double work and then it remains to be decided who will continue," he said.

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He expressed confidence that "Pastrimi"'s insistence on collecting money from citizens will cause great harm to this company.

"The other decisions that were made that day are to the detriment of the company and would lead the company to bankruptcy, there is also the collection. So the company will not be paid by the municipality for the service it provides. 'Pastrimi' will have a heavy burden because we have paid 420 thousand euros per month to the company 'Pastrimi' for household services alone, while we as a municipality have only collected 40-50 percent of the amount we paid. So we have paid more than we have collected. In the current situation, the company 'Pastrimi' will have difficulty paying its employees' income, it has debts to the landfill in Mirash," he said.

In addition, the Municipality of Pristina has not canceled the tender that envisages the hiring of five private operators for waste collection, which is in contradiction with the regulation that was amended in December last year.

"Unfortunately, we are in a very confusing situation. We had a decision of the municipal assembly, a political decision and one that in no way serves the citizens. First, one of the decisions at the request of PDK and with the support of VV was that 'Pastrimi' should remain the only company operating in Pristina for waste collection. Despite the fact that we as DFS have initiated the tender for the selection of five private operators, plus 'Pastrimi'. So our attempt was to have 6 operators in total because we have worked for 2025 with the motto 'Prishtina the cleanest city in the region', while with a decision of the municipal assembly which for me is still valid, it completely overturns this and turns the capital into a mess", said Brestovci.

On the other hand, the CEO of the "Pastrimi" company has announced that they are making all preparations for collecting from citizens.

"We have notified citizens that as of January 1, the KRM 'Pastrimi' will collect the fee. This has come as a result of the change in the regulation and their completion. I do not know why in the past it was collected by the municipality, from now on the system and method of collection and billing are changing, especially billing, since until now the billing was done once every three months, from now on the bills will be distributed month by month. The bill will be in the amount of 6.20 each time and will fall into the hands of the citizen every month, at the latest on the 10th. We expect a positive response from the citizens because only with regular payment of bills do we manage to provide the proper service. We are making our preparations and will soon come out with an official announcement through the media and through our Facebook page where we will inform citizens about the payment methods. "We will initially have the physical method where our collectors will send the bill directly to citizens and will be given the opportunity to make payments. Otherwise, we have 9 other areas for payment services and we are well on our way for all of them," said Petrit Reçica.

While the municipality believes that taking over the responsibility of collection will lead to the bankruptcy of the “Pastrimi” company, Reçica believes that doing so will actually bring in much more revenue.

"We completed the registration process in June 2023. We sent a folder with new clients and updated the data of existing clients. From that year until today, no new clients have been registered by the municipality of Pristina. Since 2023, the tariff at the warehouse has increased, which means that we have had losses. It means that we have incurred many expenses and the same has not been returned to us in value. This has caused a huge loss. In 2024 alone, the company was damaged by 3.5 million euros by the Municipality of Pristina because 25 thousand new clients were not registered. The bill was halved because part of it was paid to the private operator. In total, we were damaged by 3.5 million euros. If we had them, even with debts we would be 0-0 and we would invest more in machinery. This is the situation and we are expecting that this year it will be better reflected," he said.

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Otherwise, after numerous delays, on Thursday the Municipality of Pristina signed an agreement for the provision of six trucks to the company "Pastrimi".