The commissioner punished the mayor of Belgrade for hiding the price of Stefan Nemanja – the Association

Due to hiding the price of the costs of making and placing the monument to Stefan Nemanja in Savski trg, which were marked as a state secret, the commissioner for information of public importance imposed a fine on the mayor of Belgrade Zoran Radojicic and the city of Belgrade . Mounting. As it was not possible to collect the fine, the Commissioner approached the Serbian Government because of this.

Photo: FoNet / Instagram of the President of Serbia

The commissioner made this decision on the complaint of the artist and writer Dejan Atanackovic, who requested information on the costs from the city authorities, and because the Belgrade authorities did not provide evidence that disclosing information about the price of the monument would have serious consequences for the population. public interest.

The decision issued by the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance on February 2 fined the mayor and the Belgrade City Assembly for denying the plaintiff, Dejan Atanacković from Belgrade, information about the construction of a monument to Stefan Nemanja in Savski trg, that is, documents from which to know the contracting parties, the content of the contract, costs, fees, executed and upcoming transactions.

Since Atanacković previously received a letter from the City Administration inviting the city authorities, without any accompanying documentation, to the Government’s alleged decision to declare the monument’s price confidential, the Commissioner’s explanation of the decision reads:

“To deny access to the information requested for reasons of secrecy, the authority was obliged to prove that it was justified to do so in order to protect the primary interests ((). On that occasion it happened, that is, to state that In fact, serious legal or other consequences of disclosing the requested information and under what circumstances, as well as what legally protected interests would be violated, which in this case it did not. In addition, when it comes to spending public money by the authorities, always there is a greater public interest and, in principle, such information should always be available to the public and be transparent. “

Based on this decision, Atanackovic asked the commissioner on February 22 to inform him if the fine had been imposed and what the amount was, but received the reply that the fine could not be determined because not all the public finances of the Municipal administration. transparent. based on them determines the amount of the fine, it was not possible to do so in this case. That is, it is impossible to determine the basis for imposing fines because for their determination it is necessary to have an idea of ​​the total budget income of the executors, the Mayor of Belgrade and the Assembly of the City of Belgrade, as legal entities, and such data, According to the response of the Ministry of Finance, “They do not exist, since the Budgetary System Law does not define the concept of total income of the users of budget funds.” Furthermore, the Commissioner affirms that, even if they had the necessary information, the execution would be a matter of good will of the executing agent, given the declaration of incompetence of all those potentially competent in this dispute.

Regarding this problem, the commissioner addressed the Government of Serbia, in order to ensure the execution, but in a special letter informs him that “the Government has not done so until now, according to some request from the commissioner to ensure the execution of your decisions. “

Regarding this procedure before the commissioner, Dejan Atanacković says for Danas that the conclusion is that we live in a corrupt system, but that it is our civic duty to fight against such a system.

– I think that the complete documentation can clearly show the mechanism of unscrupulous usurpation of public budgets, absurd and ruthless interpretation of the law and, in general, a system devoid of any framework in which the law can be applied. In short, a closed circle of anarchy. Civil duty demands the continuation of the struggle by other means to determine, not only the truth about the price of the so-called monument to Stefan Nemanja, but also about the corrupt system that is the basis of this exemplary product of the progressive devastation of the state. and the city, Atanackovic said.

The sculptor continues to collect bills

That the costs of making and erecting the monument to Stefan Nemanja were marked as a state secret, the public in Serbia learned before the monument’s inauguration, in November 2020, after a group of professors from the Faculty of Philosophy sent a request for information. of public importance to the city of Belgrade, which was meanwhile dispatched by Dejan Atanacković. At the request for information on the price of the realization and erection of the monument, the group of teachers received first from the Secretariat of Culture of the city – silence, and then after the intervention of the commissioner and the answer – that these data are kept under the label “secret” until 2023. After the ceremonial inauguration of the monument, the representatives of the city authorities promised that the price would be announced “when the sculptor approved it”, and during his arrival in Belgrade, the artist Aleksandar Rukavishnikov, who made the monument pointed out that he still did not know how much he earned with the monument, that his assistants are still collecting bills and the costs are expiring.

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