"I am ashamed to say how few people pay for public transport," said the mayor of Belgrade Aleksandar Šapić in 2022, before he stopped paying city transport.
However, the tails remained. Now all taxpayers and citizens of Belgrade will have to indirectly pay the debts that the Secretariat for Public Transport, which manages this area, left behind.
The city of Belgrade will have to pay almost 900 million dinars, including all late interest, to the transport consortium "Arriva Litas" due to the violation of the contract they had with the city. Nikola Jovanovic said, director of the Center for Local Self-Government.
This information was confirmed for "Vreme" by Aleksandar Samuilović, the Consortium's lawyer. He explains that the dispute itself "is the result of non-compliance with the agreed parameter with the right to increase the price of transportation."
"The parameters have been provided by the City, even in the public call for participation in the tender," notes Samuilović. "So, at the time when the conditions were met for a price increase, for example, an increase in the price of fuel, the City did not increase the price for several months, but the carriers carried out the transport practically at their own expense."
City of Belgrade and the Secretariat for Public Transport did not respond to "Vremen"'s questions to comment on the allegations of a large sum of almost 900 million dinars, including all late interest, which the Secretariat for Public Transport must pay to private transporters, due to the violation of the contract they had with the City. They did not answer questions regarding the total debts of utility companies in the capital.
Similar problems have been going on for a decade and a half
Samuilović says that it is important to keep in mind that within the Consortium there are twenty carriers that performed the work of transporting passengers in the city of Belgrade for the disputed period during 2021 and 2022.
"In that sense, although at first glance it is a huge amount - that amount will be distributed among twenty transporters and that for the work that was performed in a period of two years", he adds.
Disputes similar to this have already been fought between the City and private carriers for the past 15 years, the lawyer adds.
"Also, similar disputes, but on different grounds, were conducted in other cities of the Republic of Serbia. Even though the city's Attorney's Office initiated a review, given almost the same factual and legal situation as in the proceedings from the previous decade, it is to be expected that the decision will be confirmed by the Supreme Court of Cassation", says Samuilović about the possible final outcome of this dispute.
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