CEC Chairwoman, Valdete Daka, said today that she feels offended by the statements by Finance Minister, Besnik Bislimi, as her staff works overtime during elections and therefore they have to be paid.

“I don’t  want to deal with whether the budget request was fulfilled or not, for which for the sake of information we still have no decision from the Government nor allocated funds. However, I wanted to relate to the statements of the Minister of Finance, which have been offensive, not only to me personally, as a judge of the Supreme Court, but to all the staff of CEC  that work and have worked not just for these elections but since the independence of the Republic of Kosovo. Moreover, they perhaps worked for 30 elections, which were an example for the entire Balkan region.

Snap elections require extraordinary commitment, regardless of whether they’re organized for one municipality or for the whole of Kosovo, as electoral operations doesn’t differ, and engagement of the staff is exceptional and it requires overtime engagement. Hence, according to the law, each employee that works overtime is guaranteed to be paid for that,” Daka said during the meeting of CEC today.