Wrote: Etrit Rexhepi
The arrival of 30 new buses in Pristina was announced several times during the term of Përparim Rama, the mayor of this municipality.
Whereas, it was Shpend Ahmeti, former mayor of Pristina, who stated the first is obtaining a loan for the purchase of 30 new buses, which according to him would be purchased in 2021.
What happened to the new buses?
Hibrid.info has found that despite all the warnings, mentioning certain dates, in the last year of Mayor Rama's leadership, Pristina still does not have the new buses.
Analyze:
Progress Rama won the majority of votes in the local election runoff on November 14, 2021, to lead the capital for four years.
Hibrid.info has researched the GAP Institute's "Municipal Identity Card" electronic platform, where the degree of fulfillment of election promises made by mayors for the 2021-2025 mandate is published.
This platform is used to control election promises of the current mayor of Pristina.
Among these pledges, not a single one was found that indicates that Rama, during the campaign, promised to increase the number of buses during his government.
Because the arrival of 30 new buses was an unrealized project of the previous government, the realization of this commitment was left to Mayor Rama.
Alban Zogaj, the deputy mayor of Pristina, had written on Facebook that a new loan is being negotiated with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), worth over 10 million euros, for the purchase of new buses. According to this post dated November 14, 2022, the agreement was signed that year, while the buses would be in Pristina in 2023.
Based on articles published (May 10, 2023) in the media "paparaci.com" and "insajderi.org", Rama himself announced the arrival of buses in 2023 (see here and here).
71 days later, in a publication On his Facebook account, Rama wrote that 30 new buses will soon be added to the Urban Traffic fleet, 6 of which will be electric, without mentioning the time of arrival of these buses.
While, in an article (October 3, 2023) published on the portal "indeksonline.net", based on an interview with Deputy Mayor Zogaj, it is reported that in the first half of 2024, "Prishtina will have 30 new buses".
This proves that the buses did not arrive in 2023.
And Pristina was not equipped with additional buses, not even in 2024. This was proven by a status Rama's Facebook post (May 22, 2024), where it was stated that from January 1, 2025, there will be a new bus fleet.
However, according to an article published (September 14, 2024) in the medium "koha.net", encountered by hibrid.info, it was reported that the arrival of new buses in the capital had been suspended, which announced that the buses were not expected to arrive even on the date announced by Rama.
Hibrid.info found an article published on January 30 by the same medium, which reports that Rama's promise to bring 30 new buses, 6 of which would be electric, has not yet been fulfilled.
According to the statement extracted from the text of this article, Bekim Brestovci, the director of Public Services, has claimed that the chances of the arrival of new buses are small.
Brestovc's quote taken from the "koha.net" article:
"The truth is that we are not a party to the purchase of buses that will be made by 'TU', through a loan, we are only guarantors. This extension is unreasonable for me, from the time they were promised until now. I do not have any expectations that this will be realized quickly, but we are at the service of citizens regardless of whether 'TU' realizes the arrival this year, or not. For this, we have taken the first step and have contracted all the lines that existed based on the 2006 regulation", said Brestovci"The reason why the delay in bringing the buses is happening, I really don't know because as I said, 'YOU' is responsible for this. We are not implicated as a Municipality, but only the company. As you can see, the prerequisites have not been completed, in accordance with the contract with the EBRD, in this case we would have had the opportunity to start the tendering procedure. So far we don't even have a tendering process and then it is a rather short timeframe.".
It is not known when or if the promise to increase the number of buses will be fulfilled, but what has been proven is that, despite promises over the years, the 30 new buses have not yet arrived.
Conclusion:
During the mandate of Mayor Përparim Rama, the arrival of 30 new buses was promised on several occasions, with specific deadlines being given.
But, so far the promised buses have not arrived.
Based on the methodology of working on fulfilling or keeping promises, hibrid.info evaluates the failure to implement this project as a "promise not kept".
Reasoning:
Fulfillment or keeping of promises is mainly related to pre-election promises, which are monitored at the central and local levels during the four-year mandate. This research is mainly conducted during the pre-election campaign, where the main political figures are monitored, in order to have a fact-check of what they say. Based on the promises made earlier, through the election program, Hibrid.info checks the statements of these politicians, to see if they have managed to keep those promises after the mandate. Hibrid.info plans to publish such reports on an annual basis.
The assessment in this category is made as – keeping the promise (if it is kept), partial keeping of the promise and promise not kept (if it is not kept).