"Citizen Patrol" application available in Pale

20.07.2022.

The "Citizens' Patrol" application, which enables citizens to report utility and other problems in their surroundings via mobile devices, has been available in the municipality of Pale since yesterday.

Branko Vasiljević from the company "DVC Solutions" from Banjaluka, which created this application, stated that its main goal is to achieve more up-to-date and efficient communication between citizens and local authorities with the aim of improving communal services.

"Primarily, these are reports related to communal problems, illegal landfills and various problems that can be responded to by the communal police or a department within the local self-government unit. In addition to the municipalities of Pale, citizens can also use this application in Banja Luka, Brčko and Zvornik," said Vasiljević.

He pointed out that the application is completely anonymous, which encourages citizens to report problems in their local communities.

Vasiljević pointed out that there are problems for which local communities are not responsible, but citizens can be referred to the institutions under whose jurisdiction the problem was reported. According to him, for problems for which the municipality is responsible, a mechanism has been created for citizens to choose a problem category when they send a report, and by choosing a category, the report is automatically forwarded to the competent department. "If jurisdiction overlaps, the report will reach the person in charge," explained Vasiljević.

The President of the Pale Municipal Assembly, Damjan Škipina, pointed out that when reporting a problem, citizens should send up to three photos or a short video, after which the competent service will go out into the field. "We believe that this application will improve the quality of life in Pale. The application is already active and citizens can download and use it. In the coming period, we will improve and perfect it even more", assessed Škipina.

The Acting Head of the Municipal Department for Economy and Social Activities, Žarko Čović, says that the application will reduce the time required for competent municipal services to respond to a specific problem in the local community, and citizens will be able to see at any moment what stage the reported problem is in.

Kristina Erak, operational manager from the "Bit Alliance" Association, stated that the project "Smart cities towards the digital transformation of cities in BiH" was started last year, and that it is focused on the creation of action plans for the development of digital transformation in 5 units of local self-governments, as well as on the implementation of two demo projects - the Citizen Patrol application and Smart Parking.

For the citizens of Pale, the application is currently only available for Android devices, while a version adapted for IOS devices is expected in the near future. We invite all citizens of Pal to be up-to-date and use the application, which can be downloaded via the link.

The application adapted to Palam is donated by DVC Solutions through the project "Smart cities towards the digital transformation of cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina", which is implemented through a development partnership with the companies Lanaco d.o.o., DVC Solutions d.o.o. within the develoPPP framework. de program implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation/Cooperation and Development of the Federal Republic of Germany (BMZ), in cooperation with the Bit Alliance association.