Kosovo Pleads for Cash to Save Business College

If the government of Kosovo does not honour a pledge to take on the operational costs from international donors, the International Business College Mitrovica, IBCM, will be forced to close in July after the academic year ends.

The Minister of Education, Arsim Bajrami told BIRN on Thursday that delays were happening because parliament, which needs to approve any ratification of funding agreements. has been dissolved for the June election.

"If we could have had only one more parliamentary session, the draft law would have been approved," Bajrami told BIRN.

He added that there were two possibilities. One was if donor states showed understand for the "extraordinary situation that Kosovo is dealing with.

"The first option is for donors to find a temporary solution for a month, or two or three months, until the Kosovo Assembly becomes functional. The second could be a special meeting of government where they could allocate a temporary fund from the reserve funds that would cover arrangements until a draft law is approved by the new assembly," Bajrami said.

The College's current donors, Sweden, The Netherlands and Switzerland, issued a joint statement calling on the Kosovo government to "urgently decide on emergency funding for IBCM and to release it immediately at least the first year of funding, i.e. 600.000 euros, in line with the signed international agreement", adding that this is the only way to avoid the closure of IBCM.

"Due to many delays in this process, until now no funds have been disbursed by the Government." the joint statement of embassies said.

Since the summer of 2015, the Education Ministry has been working on making good on a promise to cover the college's operational costs.

The government decided to open...