WB cofinancing Mostar WWTP

The World Bank is a key partner of the Programme and Implementer, whilst responsibility for implementation rests on the Project Implementation Unit within Ministry of Agriculture, Water Management and Forestry and Project Implementation Team within Communal Company and support by City of Mostar. Capacity of Communal company to effectively monitor the project proved to be weak and support by City of Mostar remains insufficient. Though Agreement with World Bank has been extended several times, unfortunately WWTP is still not up and running. Reasons are manifold. Several implementation delays related to problems with land acquisition at the beginning of the Project and then synchronizing WWTP construction with expansion of the wastewater network in Mostar resulted in closing the project prior to the start and commissioning of its largest WWTP in Mostar.  Furthermore, financial crises in Greece influenced contractor from Greece to slow down activities during year of 2015. During winter 2015-2016 bad weather conditions (low temperature and snow) slowed down progress of the works even more. Significant issues however, are with establishing and collecting wastewater tariffs and thus maintaining financial well-being of utilities that operate constructed WWTP. In Mostar there are no tariffs for wastewater services, and given political situation currently there are no available mechanisms to introduce tariff increase neither to subsidize operation of newly constructed WWTP. On the other hand, public utility company is not in position to provide sustainable maintenance and operation of the WWTP. All above-mentioned resulted in continuous delays and closing the project before WWTP is put into operation.

Overall, the project objective was to strengthen the capacity of local utilities and reduce pollution from municipal sources into the Neretva River and by that to reduce municipal pollution and nutrients in the Adriatic Sea. The GEF Water Quality Protection Project was declared effective in November 2005. The project of waste water treatment plant is an integral part of the project of rehabilitation and extension of the sewerage network in the city of Mostar. The waste water will be collected in the area of the central valley on both sides of the Neretva river through two major collectors. The collector on the left bank will cross the Neretva River upstream from the Aviator bridge and connect there with collector on the right bank. From there, the wastewater will be transported by single pipeline to the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). The waste water treatment plant includes mechanical and biological treatment with the elimination of substances (nitrogen and phosphorus) in accordance with EU standards. WWTP is capacitated for 100.000 Person Equivalents (PE). Overall, construction of the WWTP in Mostar is financed by funds provided by GEF (USD 1.8 million), Swedish Embassy (USD 3.5 million) and EU IPA 2010 (EUR 5.0 million).Specifically, under the Project, the Swedish Embassy provided funds by Administrative Agreement for the Swedish Trust Fund for Quality Protection Project, City of Mostar (Trust Fund No. TF071611/SIDA Contribution No. 53020021) for co-financing construction of a waste water treatment facilities in Mostar.