First, a flood at the beginning of summer, and then a drought hit one of the most fertile parts of the Tuzla Canton – the municipality of Celic. The resulting damages are enormous, especially in the field of agriculture. Because of this, this place, known for the production of a large amount of quality strawberries, could be almost without a harvest of this fruit next spring. Many people promised them help after the flood, but few kept their promise.
Unprecedented floods destroyed strawberry plantations and greenhouses in Celic. Two months later, instead of new plantings… Only large producers partially managed to independently recover from the damage. One of them is Mustafa Meskocic, whose property worth 400,000 BAM was destroyed by a flood in his fields.
“The losses were on that, then on the strawberry yield and now on the drought. “The prices have gone up enormously, but I do it and I will do it for the rest of my life, no matter what,” says Mustafa.
By that he means the carelessness of the authorities who, as he says, have brought agriculture to the bottom.
“They are interested in taxes. Every year I pay almost 100,000 in taxes and get one big zero back.”
Smaller steel producers found themselves in even bigger problems after the flood. So Mujo Osmic is helping out on his neighbor’s property today because he has no possibility to restart production on his own, which was completely destroyed.
“Fertilizers are expensive, derivatives, everything has gone up by 200-300%. I expect something at least from the Municipality and Tuzla Canton”, he says.
And as things stand for now, immediate help is certain only through the Municipality.
“We received 50,000 BAM from the Government of Tuzla Canton, and we allocated another 150,000 BAM from other funds, and next week we will distribute those 200,000 BAM to agricultural producers specifically for mineral fertilizers, in order to help them both because of the flood and the drought itself,” Admir Hrustanovic, Mayor of the Celic Municipality, says.
The total damage from the June flood in Celic was estimated at six and a half million marks, and in addition to agriculture, it also refers to damage to commercial and residential buildings and city infrastructure. In the days after the flood, many promised help, but so far they have received only 220,000 marks in total.
Thanks to the agreement with the Government of FBiH, they expect an additional 250,000 marks for repairing the damage in the economy, and by rebalancing their modest budget, they also secured about 800,000 marks for the repair of the city’s infrastructure, which they are nearing completion.
