[11][12] The Peja region was threatened by serious forest fires in August 2000, and Çeku was described as deploying all of the forces of the municipality to prevent an environmental catastrophe.
[14][15] The Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) won a majority victory in the city, and his term as council leader came to an end.
[18] Following his appointment, he said his first priority would be the development and implementation of a legal structure for his ministry; once this was in place, his focus would turn to building industrial zones and infrastructure, environmental protection, and management of natural resources.
He said that Pristina's growing illegal construction sector was a serious problem and also accused neighbouring Macedonia of "invading" 2,500 hectares of Kosovo's territory.
He identified limited finances and a lack of qualified employees as his department's main challenges and called for additional funding from international donors.
Their talks covered illegal housing construction, tourism, and the integration of Kosovo's highway system with Albania and Macedonia.
[28] Shortly after his appointment as energy minister, Çeku took part in a public debate with Nexhat Daci, who was then president of the Assembly of Kosovo.
[29] In June 2005, Çeku introduced a fifteen-year energy development strategy, highlighted by a pledge for Kosovo to have 4,200 megawatts in new generating capacities by 2020.
[30] Two months later, he said that Kosovo Energy Corporation (KEK) officials, with whom he had a poor relationship generally in this period, would need to provide residents with all-day electricity transmission or face punitive measures.
Çeku described the plant as the largest investment that Kosovo's government had made since the beginning of UNMIK's mandate and said that it would generate one hundred fifty million Euros per year for the state.
[38][39][40] One of the plant's strongest supporters was UNMIK deputy chief of internal administration Steven P. Schook, with whom Çeku had formed a close partnership.
[41] In June 2006, Çeku rejected a proposal by the Russian firm Gazprom to build a new power capacity fuelled by imported natural gas.
[44] In August of the same year, he led the board in ending the KEK's financial support for Radio Television of Kosovo (RTK).
[45] Çeku and Kosovo interior minister Blerim Kuçi introduced a 2007 memorandum that made vehicle registration conditional on the payment of all outstanding energy bills.
An unintended consequence of this was a decrease in the number of registered vehicles and greater financial pressure on Kosovo's insurance agencies.
The World Bank's director for South East Europe expressed disappointment with the sector in July 2007, saying that it had not been managed properly despite significant investments.