photo: dimitrije nikolić / tanjug
The number of people arrested in the state anti-corruption campaign is only increasing day by day, but the new names only reveal - that they are actually known criminals, whose cases were just waiting in some drawers
The state campaign against corruption seems to have no end, and arrests have continued for suspects in investigations in the field of construction and public procurement - areas where corruption, as many believe, grows faster than illegal construction.
Thus, the former mayor of Niš was included in the investigation Dragana Sotirovski, whose work is being investigated in connection with the report of the State Audit Institution on public procurements carried out during its mandate. They were also arrested Nemanja Stajic, the former head of the Secretariat for Legalization of Buildings in Belgrade, as well as his brother, due to suspicion that they approved the legalization of a number of illegally built buildings in exchange for money.
In both cases, former officials are under investigation, about whom the public has long heard.
The Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Niš filed a case on the affairs of Dragana Sotirovski in September of last year, after the State Audit Institution established irregularities in the management of budget funds, and in connection with the engagement of private companies Vodomonteri and Sim puk gradnja through the Emergency Situations Headquarters.
The fact that the Stajić brothers directed the construction of illegal buildings in Belgrade was investigated by Krik as early as 2021, and the article was written a year later, and the investigation against Stajić was launched as early as 2022, six months after the article of this media.
"When asked what we can expect from the arrests, I can only tell you - I expect the arrest of the prosecutors who kept these known cases in their drawers for so long," Čedomir Čupić, professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences and former chairman of the Board of the Anti-Corruption Agency, told Vreme. "Everyone they arrested, especially the latter, we have known for a long time from various investigations and the media. Therefore, if the prosecution is really going to do something, then it should first dismiss the prosecutors who are hiding all those cases."
Replacing main points
Another question that Čupić, if he were again at the head of the Board of the Agency for the fight against corruption, would ask is - what the prosecution is doing when it comes to knowledge about Natasa Vuksic, Vučić's associate without a formal position, whom BIRN wrote about as speeding up the construction of block B3 of the Kostolac thermal power plant and from the shadows played a role in the reconstruction of the railway to Hungary.
"Of course, the third question for the prosecution is of course also the main one, which we have all been repeating for months and which is also the most important - have all the contracts for the construction of the Railway Station in Novi Sad been delivered? Because of this case, we have all these arrests, and currently nobody is interested in those outdated cases, but only this one - about the construction in Novi Sad, which led to the collapse of the canopy and the death of 15 people," adds Čupić. "I would expect proceedings to be initiated against people who may not have submitted documentation, and not to waste additional time."
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