LocationsThe expansion of the city towards the Novi Žepče zone will also be facilitated
Thanks to the heating pipeline: 1,000 students in Žepče will have warm classrooms in the newly built school building
November 14, 2024
Foto: Adnan Bubalo
Heating will not be a problem for the 600 students of the “Žepče” Elementary School who started classes in the new school building in the fall, and the 400 from the first to the sixth grade who will join them from the next school year, as well as for the school staff. Thanks to support through the Municipal Environmental Governance (MEG2) Project, jointly funded by Sweden, the Government of Switzerland and the Government of the Czech Republic, as well as the European Union, a heating pipeline has been built to which the new school and all newly built buildings in the Novi Žepče area will be connected.
Heating – from a possible obstacle to an advantage
The director of the “Žepče” Elementary School, Boris Sović, says that the construction of a new school has been considered since 2013, given that the old school building “has taken its toll”.
"We previously did some tests of the old school building, also with the help of UNDP, which was willing to help us restore it, but when we saw that many things were missing, we made the decision to start building a new school," recalls Boris Sovic.
He says that the idea of building a new school sounded impossible to many at the beginning, but that construction was started anyway, with the support of the Municipality, the mayor and the Municipal Council. One of the possible obstacles that was mentioned at the time was the heating of the new building:
Boris Sović
Foto: Adnan Bubalo
"When we were working on the project plan, since there was no heating in this area, one of the ideas was to connect to the heating of the high school across the street, and the other was to build our own boiler room, which was much more complicated. Then we had a meeting with the director of the utility company, the mayor and the assistant mayor, and a decision was made that the most favorable thing for the school would be to connect to the city heating, which is much better for us as a school."Boris Sović
Instead of a boiler room, a substation
He adds that they were aware that the construction of the heating system would be difficult to finance, but that they are happy with how everything turned out in the end:
"Donors have been found, there is the UNDP with the MEG2 project, there is the Municipality with other partners. In addition to heating the school, heating for Novo Žepče is also being solved, and the utility company also gets us as a large consumer, so the conclusion was reached that we are going to introduce district heating for the benefit of everyone. It will pay off for us in the long run, there is uncertainty in the supply of pellets and prices often increase, some of the branch schools were heated with coal, which is now almost non-existent, with the problem of pollution. We are calm like this, the utility company will worry about heating, and it also has the capacity to respect us. We as a school are very satisfied, where the boiler room was planned, we now have a substation, and we believe that the heating will be launched by the start of the heating season on October 15".
The Director of the Public Utility Company “Žepče” Mirko Šumić says that the project of reconstruction and expansion of the district heating system in Žepče supported through MEG2 is of great importance for the municipality, but also for the company itself.
We were not aware of how much we did not know
“The primary school was actually moved from the very center of the city to the outskirts, where we had to solve the problem of heat supply. We did this by bringing the diameter of the pipeline that can meet the needs of the school and surrounding facilities, and to meet the future needs of the city of Žepče, especially since the construction of Novi Žepče with a larger number of residential and commercial spaces and public buildings is planned at this location, so the heating pipeline that we have built will meet all these future needs, and the space will also gain additional value,” explains Director Šumić, adding that the MEG project has also improved the operations of this public company:
“Before MEG, we thought we were doing well, and we were not even aware of how much we did not know. "The consultants highlighted to us what the situation is, what the world practices are, they recorded the situation and suggested what we should change. That's how we made progress in the area of measuring and detecting water losses and faults," he says, emphasizing how the company's organization itself has been improved, from the organizational structure to financial management:
Mirko Šumić, direktor Javnog komunalnog preduzeća “Žepče”
Foto: Adnan Bubalo
"Previously, for example, we sent one invoice for all the services we provide, and then we didn't know who paid what - water, heating or garbage collection. Now we have separated everything, each center has its own accounting, we know exactly what was invoiced to whom and what was paid, income and expenses are monitored adequately. Progress has also been made in registration, before a lot of the property we managed was not registered, now we have listed all the property, carried out an assessment and introduced the property into the company. In every sense, it is now a different company compared to before."Mirko Šumić
Branka Janko, Director of the Žepče Development Agency and MEG coordinator for this municipality, believes that the MEG project is one of the more successful in BiH for several reasons:
“One of them is that it introduced new things in municipal administration and public administration, from the executive to the legislative branch. Through training, we introduced certain tools for communication with citizens, such as the councilor's hour or the chairman's hour with citizens, which we formalized and made transparent, in the sense that citizens have a channel for submitting initiatives, ideas or comments. On the other hand, the municipality is transparent when it comes to anti-corruption and other documents, it functions in an open manner in the Municipal Council and municipal services,” she says, particularly highlighting eCitizen:
“A mechanism for online communication with citizens, the private sector, councilors, assistant mayors and all directors of public institutions and institutions has been established. Citizens have the opportunity to send comments and suggestions, and they are responded to within 24 hours. In addition, a series of documents have been prepared, an annual survey is being conducted among citizens, and the goal of all this is to establish better mechanisms for working with citizens and the private sector, but also to listen to the needs on the ground”.
Connecting the public and private sectors
Improvements in organization and communication, adds Branka Janko, influenced the selection of projects such as the reconstruction and expansion of the heating pipeline in this, and projects implemented in the first phase. They also had an impact on establishing practices for subsequent projects
“All projects that we implemented with the help of MEG had a foothold in the expressed needs of citizens. And this teaches us that in the future, we will base everything we do on whether the local community needs it, who needs it and what the target group is. Based on that, we create projects and then seek funding. The development agency plays a key role here, since we connect the public and private sectors, and we work on designing and implementing projects that we then send to donors,” he says, emphasizing that when it comes to MEG, it is particularly important that projects are awarded grants based on established results:
“It is the only donor that has introduced this type of support, our results are assessed through a specific set of indicators that we must meet, and everything is moving in the direction of public administration reform. As a municipality, we have been at the top in three cycles so far, and have received significant funds that we have combined with our own funds and implemented projects that are in need in the community,” he says, referring to the heating pipeline construction project:
Branka Janko, direktorica Razvojne agencije Žepče
Foto: Adnan Bubalo
"In the last phase, we obtained support for the hot water pipe, where we are among the few, considering that mainly water supply and sewerage projects are supported, but we justified that this is our priority. The heating pipe is not only for the needs of the school, which had to move out of the city due to the dilapidation of the building, but also connects new users who will come forward, as well as the private sector. It also enabled us to solve the sewerage and water supply system for Novo Žepče on top of the constructed hot water pipe".Branka Janko
Responsible and Transparent Decision Making
The Mayor of Žepče Municipality, Mato Zovko, is pleased with both the latest project and the overall progress that the Municipality has made through the MEG project:
Mato Zovko
Foto: Adnan Bubalo
“The Municipality of Žepče is happy to participate in development projects, and one of them, which we started in 2016, is the MEG, which is being implemented in our country in three phases. It is important that it included the areas of development management, water management, economic management of the municipality, and responsible and transparent decision-making. The population is most interested in the area of water management, how to improve water quality, ensure that everyone has water, and make billing as efficient as possible. In this and other areas, we have learned many things that are applied in Europe, and one of the most important results is improving the quality of services.”Mato Zovko
When it comes to the last project for which the Municipality was awarded a grant, he particularly emphasizes the merit of the Development Agency and the utility company that worked on the implementation, and the fact that the funds won were used for a specific purpose:
Without the heating system, we could not open the school
“We are building our school, which is our largest capital project, which, if everything goes according to plan, we will open in the fall of this year. A large, central city school, which we could not open if we had not extended the heating system from the city to it. Earlier, we secured part of the funds from the Government of the Zenica-Doboj Canton, and later from the Federal Ministry of Finance, of course with the participation of the Municipality, along with the grants that we received as a reward in the MEG2 project. The award was used for the best purposes that we need," says Mayor Zovko, and he mentions many more users along the Novi Žepče route who will benefit from the heating pipeline construction project in the future:
"We are planning to soon build a health center on that stretch, a physical education hall will probably be built soon, then there will be residential-business and private buildings that will be able to be connected to the city's heating system, so that they don't have to make their own heating. Therefore, all the buildings that will be there will have the possibility to connect to the city's heat pipe, and that's why we took bigger and more expensive pipes, so that they can withstand the next connections."
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