Aleksandar Šapić did not come to the position of mayor of Belgrade with great public expectations: his mandate, as Vučić likes to say, is "terminated" for less than a year (which, admittedly, does not necessarily mean that it will remain that way); he came to a place where his predecessor Zoran Radojičić did not stand out, and all the strings were held by the formal deputy mayor Goran Vesić; Šapić himself began his mandate arguing with journalists, representatives of the LGBT population, and most of all - with Vesić himself.
One of Šapić's first moves in his new position was the selection of Miroslav Čučković as city manager. A few days later, heaven sends him a "salutation" for this choice of collaborators, when a huge rain falls on the capital in a short period of time, which led to flooding in certain parts of the city, overflowing sewage and the proverbial traffic collapse throughout the capital.
"We still haven't mastered the art of reading the future, especially not reading the weather. (…) Here now, it is least important who is to blame, we cannot influence God. But it is important to synchronize and reduce what happened before", said the new mayor and put forward a proposal to solve the problem: "My proposal will be for the Secretariat for Transport to make traffic signs and for all those locations to have a traffic sign that will warn people that, in the event of heavy rainfall, they simply do not pass by."
Not long after that, Šapić wrote on Twitter that "opposition media and politicians" have been providing information about him to the "opposition media and politicians" for a long time, "who were criticizing until yesterday", "but don't be surprised if at the end of the story they themselves end up on the shelf of a Chinese department store houses".
A little later, on July 20, Šapić explains that there are problems with suburban municipalities because Vesić promised people towers and cities: "We now have to explain to those people that it is currently impossible to carry out the things he promised them."
Along with these transfers to Vesić, Šapić continues his long-standing support for convicted war criminals, so on the initiative to remove the Ratko Mladić mural, the mayor says that "he does not know whether Mladić committed war crimes, but he knows that he defended the Serbian people in BiH", as and that it "does not fulfill the Hague wishes".
Then, in the middle of August, in the City Assembly, the majority of councilors hastily, without discussion, elects the directors of 14 Belgrade public companies in an abbreviated procedure. The opposition complains that they have not been provided with the biographies of the candidates, that they do not even know what they are voting on. Šapić answers: "We don't give biographies so that you wouldn't make fun of them and that your media wouldn't use them, to put it in jargon, as rags for mopping the floor, so that you wouldn't drag their families through, so that you wouldn't slander them in the media and that they wouldn't come to the situation to give up".
Here the question arises: why were they elected at all at the session of the City Assembly, they could have done so in secret, and even today it is not known who the new directors are, and the media would not deal with them... And at the end of August Šapić demolishes an illegal building in Avala thus announcing the fight against illegal construction... However, when asked about the demolition of illegal structures on the Sava Embankment, Šapić argues with journalists and says that the embankment is not threatened by those objects, accusing journalists of maliciously mounting his statements "like Kubik", and announces that he will combine the secretariat for inspection affairs, the communal militia and part of the Beoinfo service and create a body that will be called "Beli - Belgrade personal, maybe an adviser, assistant, supervisor or friend".
All this happened in the first 100 days of the new city government. But the first 100 days are in the past. What's next?
SHAPIC SCISSORS
We could guess that from the budget rebalancing, which councilors will discuss in the City Assembly when this issue of "Vremena" goes to press (on Wednesday, September 28). Šapic's administration did not try to be transparent even as much as the previous one.
Namely, the citizens would have no idea what the councilor majority was going to adopt if the councilor groups "Ne davimo Beograd" and the Democratic Party had not scanned hundreds of pages of material and put them on the Internet - the proponents had not even made that much of an effort, and after everything was published in the Official Gazette of the City of Belgrade, you should again expect a non-searchable "pdf" file, so now watch until your eyes fall out and write it down somewhere on the side...
What is the new majority proposing, with Mayor Šapić at the helm? Enough of that and Vesić's majority in the original budget for 2022 (adopted in December 2021) and the first rebalance (in February 2022). However, it can be seen that the new majority has given up on some things.
photo: milica vucković / fonet...
Analyzing the (officially unpublished) budget rebalancing proposal, it can be seen that environmental protection expenditures were reduced by about 2,2 billion dinars. Most of this goes to the practical cancellation of the "Thermal rehabilitation of public buildings - improvement of energy efficiency" project, at least for this year (reduction from 1,9 billion dinars to 20 million dinars, for which almost 1,2 billion should have come from the EU).
Also, it can be seen that expenditures for fixed assets were reduced by 7,3 billion dinars compared to the original budget, reducing expenditures for buildings and construction facilities and machinery and equipment.
What does that mean? This means that Šapić is moving the construction of the Bus Station in New Belgrade further into the future, considering that he is leaving 125,8 million of the foreseen 22,5 million in this section; reduces by 150 million dinars the funds for the construction of the sewage pumping station Krnjača 2; reduces by almost one and a half billion the funds intended this year for the construction of the Makiš-Mladenovac regional water supply (from 1,83 billion to 395 million); postpones the construction of the necessary road that should connect the residents of the "Stepa Stepanović" Settlement with Vojvode Stepa Street (15,3 million provided in the budget, reduced to less than 5 million by the February rebalance, and 2,9 million will remain after the second rebalance).
At the same time, Šapić "cuts" the management and maintenance of the traffic infrastructure to under one billion dinars (in the original budget it was 1,56 billion, in the rebalancing to 1,14, although he raises current repairs from 5,45 to 6,78 billion); and reduces Vesić's digital textbook project by as much as 400 million dinars...
WHERE THERE IS NO CHANGE
What does Šapić not change in relation to Vesić's rebalancing from February?
It leaves a significantly reduced budget for the construction of pre-school facilities (one billion planned in December, then reduced to 495 million in February, Šapić leaves it at 483 million); leaves that public companies need to pay as much as 50 million euros (5,58 billion) into the budget, although it would be much better to do one of two things - invest that money back into companies to improve services, or reduce levies on citizens, since it is obvious that they pay more than necessary; leaves unusual increased services under the contract intended for the mayor and the City Council (the December budget provided for 6,8 million here, and in February it would jump to 246,8 million, which was left in the September rebalancing proposal).
WHAT ELSE DOES ŠAPIĆ LEAVE??
It leaves more than 4 million euros (515 million dinars) for the project "Belgrade smart city - communication with citizens (Citizen engagement)", it leaves more than 3 million euros (380 million dinars) for something called "Belgrade smart city - integration of external systems of public importance for the purpose of sustainable development (economic, social, ecological, technological and other aspects of development)"; does not cancel the spectacular two million euros that Vesić earmarked for the project called "Adaptation to climate change by arranging green areas in schoolyards", but "shortens" it to one million euros; finally, he leaves almost 4 million dinars for another spectacular project that hardly anyone can repeat, even after several readings: "Development of a strategy for the impact of climate change on the interaction of ecosystem services in the use and management of Belgrade's forest resources".
Finally, Šapić is not giving up - and he cannot give up since the roof is already finished - from almost 100.000 euros intended for the project "Implementation of climate change adaptation measures by arranging a green roof on the building of the City Municipality of Voždovac".
WITH A WIDE HAND
What is Šapić increasing compared to Vesić's budget? There are a lot of interesting things there: God first created his own beard, and that's how Šapić increases the expenditure for the salaries of the mayor and the City Council, from 30,3 to almost 42 million dinars per year. Then, it accelerates the reconstruction of the Kalenić market (from 652 million to 1,19 billion); leaves more than 5 million euros for the construction of the "green market complex in Obrenovac", and raises the plan for the cost of building the market in Lazarevac from 72 to 99 million dinars.
However, the most interesting increases are not seen in the rebalancing of the budget, but in other documents that will be presented to councilors on Wednesday, September 28.
Šapić first duplicates several existing companies: he founds the Sports Center "Novi Beograd" doo, which aims to manage the Sports Hall ("Ranko Žeravica") in New Belgrade. And all this would be fine if there was no Public Enterprise Sports Center Novi Belgrade, founded in 1979, which manages the Sports Hall (and the Sports and Recreational Center "April 11") and is located at the same address as the company that needs to be established (Highway No. 2). To make things even more interesting, at the same session the councilors will vote on the proposal that the president of the assembly of the newly formed company should be Aleksandar Čamagić, and that one of the members should be Vaso Glibo. The entire procedure of "cloning" an already existing company becomes clear if we know that until recently the president of the supervisory board (NO) of the existing company JP SC Novi Beograd was - Aleksandar Čamagić, and one of the members of the NO - Vaso Glibo.
But that's not the end: the new majority led by the new mayor - in addition to the already existing City Transport Company and the existing JKP Zelenilo - envisages the establishment of the Public Utility Company "Naplata prevozne usluge Belgrade", for collection, logistics and management of public transport of passengers in Belgrade, as well as establishment of the Public Utility Company "Belgrade Park" for the management of parks and provision of conditions for their use, arrangement and protection, for the area of the central 10 city municipalities.
The matter becomes much clearer when we see the list of activities that the new company will perform in the foundation act of PUK "Belgrade Park": among other things, there are the construction of other unmentioned buildings, demolition of buildings, preparatory construction sites, installation of electrical installations, installation of water, sewage, heating and air conditioning systems. system, activities of restaurants and mobile and catering facilities...
HR SOLVE EVERYTHING
However, things become hilarious when we look at the biographies of the proposed candidates for the supervisory board of future companies: thus, the candidate for the Supervisory Board member of PUK "Naplata prevozne usluge Beograd" states the following in his biography under the "Technical abilities" section:
"I am communicative, open to cooperation, obedient, willing to learn and improve myself, hardworking, meticulous, disciplined, calm and cultured. During work, when a problem arises, I am very resourceful in finding a solution. I like team work the most, but I'm also good at working independently. As far as I know, I help and work starting with household duties so that I have a work habit. So far, I have never been late for work or been fired. I try my best to do everything right, of course, in consultation with the employer."
On the other hand, the candidate for a member of the Supervisory Board of PUK "Beogradski park" states that she graduated in 2019 from the Faculty of Management of Union University at the age of 54, and the candidate for a temporary member of the same company as the first item under the section "Professional training" states "Academy of Young Leaders", while as an activity it states "Member of the Serbian Progressive Party"...
However, this number of companies is not the only thing that will increase after the session of the City Assembly: city transfers to all city municipalities will increase significantly. However, the order must also be known here: unlike Vesić, who, as the president of the Municipality of Novi Beograd, did not plan to give Šapić a single dinar either in December 2021 or in February 2022, Šapić, now as mayor, is sending his former municipality as much as 4 million euros and increases the budget of the Municipality of Novi Beograd from 593 million to 1,43 billion dinars.
Even manager Čučković does not want to fall behind, so the new government, with Šapić and Čučković at the helm, plans to transfer 461,5 million dinars to the Municipality of Obrenovac, Čučković's previous workplace, which, admittedly, is less than the planned 550,2 million from February 2022, but in the September rebalance it is the largest donation, after the one to the Municipality of Novi Belgrade.
However, something else is even more interesting related to Obrenovac and can go in the column "Believe it or not". Namely, the September rebalancing for the budget of the City of Belgrade foresees that part of the income of 94,5 million dinars will come from "voluntary transfers from individuals and legal entities". Therefore, people want to help and donate money to Belgrade. However, when it comes to the municipality of Obrenovac, people and companies become unusually generous: the September rebalance predicts that in 2022, Obrenovac will have income from donations from individuals and legal entities of 1,19 billion dinars (!), that is, more than 10 million euros - I guess people want to reward Čučković for his role in the 2014 flood. In this way, with the transfer of 461,5 million from the City of Belgrade, Obrenovac Municipality will have by far the most funds available - as much as 3,06 billion dinars, more than double compared to the "second-ranked" New Belgrade with 1,43 billion.
It's good to be the mayor, and also the city manager.
