The Minister of Culture has the discretionary right regulated by law to award grants to projects outside of the competition, but not to publicly justify them
Article 10 of the Regulation on the criteria, standards and method of selection of projects in culture that are financed and co-financed from the budget, establishes the discretionary right of the minister and decision-makers in the province and local self-governments.
Discretionary right allows and enables them to allocate funds for projects to whomever they want and how they want, at their own discretion and criteria, in addition to the existing tenders.
Article 10 states that they should do this "if it is an extremely important project that could not be planned in advance".
These are funds that are allocated in emergency situations, from which "extremely important projects" are financed that "could not be planned in advance" and "for emergency interventions and works that may occur during the year due to unforeseen circumstances, natural disasters and the like".
No answer
It is not known who received the money based on Article 10 and why.
We did not receive an answer to the query sent to the Ministry of Culture five days ago with the question "how much was the budget of the Ministry of Culture based on the minister's discretionary right in 2024 and what was it spent on".
The book also points out that the data on the allocated funds, on the procedures and reasons for allocating them to exactly those projects and in exactly that amount, are unavailable to the public. Exercises in the anatomy of culture, created on the basis of a ten-year monitoring of the spending of budget funds for culture in the Republic of Serbia, which was carried out by the Association of the Independent Cultural Scene headed by Dr. Predrag Cvetičanin.
It says there that it is a kind of "competition without a competition", in which 2022 projects in the amount of 2023 million dinars were supported in 228 and the first half of 280,2.
It is stated that during the year 2022, the company for the production of i
distribution of films "NaMa film" received three grants for co-financing
filming Ghost, in the total amount of 13,5 million dinars.
At the choice of the minister
In the same year, "Gargantua films doo" co-financed the film project Be God with us received 9,5 million dinars. There is also "Archangel Studios doo", which is co-financing the film project Indigo Crystal received 4 million dinars.
Opera projects were also financed from this fund for allegedly emergency interventions due to natural disasters. For example, "Touchsound doo" received two grants in the total amount of 1,25 million dinars for the project Who is still afraid of opera - a matinee at the opera.
From this fund, which supposedly finances "extremely important projects"
which "could not be planned in advance", the work of private companies was also financed
gallery. For example "Art for All Gallery" is for a project Finding a
Way received 500.000 dinars, and "Gallery Dimenzija" a million dinars. The association "Put u art" was also financed with half a million dinars for the project Silence of words or dumbness.
Without any obligation
At the same time, it is written in the aforementioned analysis, Article 10 does not specify the obligation to submit a detailed annual report on these projects, why they were chosen and how much funding they received, as well as the results they achieved. They are not listed either
sanctions, if the prescribed measures by which projects are selected are not respected.
Of the 12 cities whose spending of budget funds was the subject of this research, plus the Republic of Serbia and AP Vojvodina, only Kragujevac in 2024 had a special and reasoned decision with a list of projects supported outside the competition.
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