Sarajevo Canton's government adopted the conclusion to establish an air quality management centre within the Environmental Protection Ministry and ordered it, Administration Ministry and the Ministry of Finance to take immediate steps to form the centre, the government said on Tuesday.

The government's conclusion was made upon the proposal from the working group and many experts from the field of air quality management who analysed the existing capacities and discussed optimal models on how to deal with this issue.

“The cantonal Environmental Protection Plan identified the lack of adequate organisation and staff infrastructure as one of the biggest issues in dealing with air quality. That is why they suggested the discussion on the most adequate organisation model of the Centre with the use of state of the art of IT tools and knowledge from international institutions which would improve the Ministry's work in this field,” Environment Minister Damir Filipovic said.

He stated that the Centre will keep the register of air pollutants, prepare balances and keep the register of pollutant emissions, research airflow due to low self-cleaning capabilities of the atmosphere in the Sarajevo basin, analyse and processing the data related to air monitoring, produce air quality map for the Canton area, assess the impact of air on the health of the population, propose remedial as well as developmental measures given that development plans must include an environmental and air dimension.

The Centre will also deal with the organization of education for both institutions and the population, it will continuously report to the public on air quality and it will propose measures in special episodes of excessive air pollution, the Minister added.

Minister Filipovic noted that air protection regulations require a large number of professional jobs, which must be ensured either through competent ministries or special institutions.

“Unfortunately, neither the state level nor the level of the Federation entity are not likely to form the Environmental Protection Agency as an independent expert institution like all the countries from the region have. If the situation remains unchanged, our intention is to make the cantonal Centre into an Agency which would deal with expert issues regarding water, air and land,” Filipovic concluded.