STANKOVIĆ: TO SETTLE ISSUE OF RESTITUTION

BANJA LUKA, OCTOBER 21 /SRNA/ - Director of the Republika Srpska Administration for Geodetic and Property-Legal Affairs Dragan Stanković said that the issue of restitution of nationalized property needed to be resolved, noting that Republika Srpska had initiated the adoption of a law to regulate the matter, but that no progress had been made so far.

Stanković stressed that the Administration was actively involved in efforts to protect the property of the Serbian Orthodox Church, including cemeteries and other facilities.

"The Government of Republika Srpska has established an interdepartmental group, of which I am a member, and we constantly exchange information about developments on the ground. We are fighting to protect this property institutionally by every possible means, and I hope we will succeed," Stanković told reporters in Banja Luka.

Speaking about restitution in general, he said that there had previously been initiatives to launch the adoption of legislation regulating the issue in the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, but that it remained to be seen how the matter would develop.

Asked about the mass appraisal of real estate, Stanković said that in Laktaši, where one of the pilot projects had been carried out, revenue from real estate tax had increased from around BAM 900,000 to BAM 2.1 million.

"This is not a new levy of any kind, rather, we are recording all real estate and establishing the actual situation," Stanković said.

He explained that the pilot projects had revealed discrepancies between the records of the Geodetic Administration and the Tax Administration, prompting officials to conduct on-site inspections to establish the actual situation.

As an example, he cited the cadastral municipality of Nova Varoš in Banja Luka, where the Tax Administration had recorded around 12,000 properties and the Geodetic Administration around 14,000, while on-site checks established that there were more than 17,000.

Stanković stressed the importance of establishing a unified system for data exchange between institutions so that citizens would face fewer administrative obligations and institutions would have accurate property records.

He announced that the draft Law on Geospatial Data Infrastructure, proposed by the Government of Republika Srpska and prepared by the Republika Srpska Administration for Geodetic and Property-Legal Affairs, was expected to be considered.