By: K. R. (Moja Dolenjska)
The municipality of Kostel has confirmed that they still have not received funds for addressing the consequences of the floods from a year ago. In fact, they will receive the money in two years, as the contract was signed on September 1st, 2023. Additionally, the restoration of watercourses has not yet begun.
The floods in the Municipality of Kostel and Obkolpje occurred from September 15th, 2022.
The municipality recently signed a two-year contract with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Spatial Planning, led by Uroš Beržan (Gibanje Svoboda), on September 1st, 2023. Over the course of two years, the ministry will provide 1,714,776.22 euros for the restoration of the municipal road and communal infrastructure.
The funds will be used for the renovation of the local road from Colnarji – Kostel – Žaga and for implementing geotechnical measures.
The contract for the roadworks was signed by the Mayor of Kostel, Nataša Turk, with the contractors on Monday, September 11th, 2023. Work is expected to commence in mid-September, with construction starting in early October. The project is projected to continue into 2024.
What about watercourses?
On Friday, September 8th, the Directorate for Water signed a contract with the private company Hidrotehnik from Ljubljana, which is also partially owned by CGP Novo mesto. The company will carry out a remediation programme for last year’s floods in the municipality of Kostel. The remediation work is expected to have a total value of 1.2 million euros. The duration of the remediation was not specified by the municipality.
Epilogue
From the explanations provided by the Municipality of Kostel, in response to inquiries from the Moja Dolenjska portal, it is evident that government agencies took a year just to sign two contracts. The actual work, both on infrastructure and the restoration of damaged watercourses, will start even later and is expected to last for an extended period. In the best-case scenario, it will take two years from the floods to potentially complete the restoration. One can only imagine how these timelines will play out in Upper Savinja Valley, Carinthia, Central Slovenia, and Upper Carniola, where floods occurred in early August of this year.
The speed of this government is certainly not a virtue. In Kostel and Obkolpje, they can only hope that they will not experience a repeat of last year’s September.