It is enough for the prosecution to take the written warnings of engineer Zoran Đajić, who worked as a consultant for the company Starting, and who indicated that the condition of the concrete he saw after the marble slabs were lifted was very bad. According to the law, the contractor had to immediately inform the supervision, which could have stopped the work based on the letter from Đajić
When the "Morandi" bridge in Genoa collapsed in 2018, killing 43 people, it took two years for the prosecution to file an indictment. There were 59 people on the dock, and the first among them was the director of the company responsible for the maintenance of the bridge, because the investigation established that the bridge had not been maintained for years. In the case of the collapse of the canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad, so far only minister Goran Vesić has resigned and, judging by the campaign being conducted in the regime media, Vučić is ready to sacrifice the former minister of transport and the current minister of trade, Tomislav Momirović.
The public is mostly concerned with the causes of the fall of the canopy, and almost no one talks about the fact that the canopy was not maintained, even though it is a legal obligation of the railway infrastructure manager, that is, the public company Infrastructure of Railways of Serbia. At the head of this company is Jelena Tanasković, a staff member who, according to "Vremena" sources from the ruling party, is close to Finance Minister Sinisa Mal.
IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW A REAL PROGRESSIVE
Jelena Tanasković was the subject of criminal proceedings before the High Court in Belgrade at the beginning of the progressives' rule. The Slovenian NLB bank accused her of embezzling more than 50 million euros as the director of a factoring house together with several Serbian businessmen.
Allegedly, Tanasković then meets Siniša Malog, the most influential progressive after Vučić, and her life takes a different course. During his mandate at the head of Belgrade from 2014 to 2018, she was first responsible for child protection in Belgrade, and then became the city secretary for finance.
After Mali's departure to the Government of Serbia, Tanasković followed him and became State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, and later became State Secretary in the Ministry of the Environment, which part of the informed public recognized as an attempt by the First Vice-President of the Government to control Minister Irena Vujović.
To the surprise of many in the Serbian Progressive Party, Tanasković became Minister of Agriculture in October 2022. Where she came from in that position became clear when, in the following year, the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture increased three times compared to the time when her predecessor Branislav Nedimović was the minister. However, Tanasković did not manage this department successfully even with such a budget, since her mandate was marked by numerous protests by farmers. The way she dealt with farmers is best illustrated by the case from Bavaniste, when local progressives blocked the doorstep of one of the disgruntled farmers, preventing him from taking his sick child to the doctor.
During the election of the new Government in May 2024, Tanasković will lose the position of Minister of Agriculture. That this loss of office is the result of intra-party fights in the SNS is confirmed by the statement of the current Minister of Agriculture, Aleksandar Martinović, made a few months ago in a debate in the National Assembly. Responding to MP Miroslav Aleksić, Minister Martinović accused Tanasković of extending the deadline for applying for subsidies for agricultural machinery so that Aleksić could allegedly receive an incentive for a tractor.
In the current conflicts of the progressives, Tanasković is placed in the group of Bratislava Gašić, who is facing the fate of Nebojša Stefanović. Time will tell whether this is true, and until then, Minister Mali has appointed Jelena Tanasković a consolation position as director of the Railway Infrastructure of Serbia. In the progressive, almost feudal hierarchy, it is considered that the position of director of this company belongs to Mal, whose staff included Nebojša Šurlan, a long-time director who left the company because the recorded telephone conversations he had with Mal and other state officials were leaked to the public. functionaries.
The railway infrastructure of Serbia managed the railway station in Novi Sad. The station master, train conductors, as well as employees who cleaned and maintained it and sold tickets to passengers sat in that station. By the way, the Railway Infrastructure of Serbia manages about 650 railway stations and many of them, like the Prokop station, do not have a use permit.
According to "Vremena" sources from one of the employees' unions, this railway company took over each new phase of the completed works at the Novi Sad Railway Station, and the same procedure was carried out at Prokop. In addition to being an investor in the unsuccessful reconstruction of the station in Novi Sad, the Railway Infrastructure of Serbia, as a manager, was obliged to check the condition of the facility. Citizens' statements to the media after the tragedy show that they did not do that, statements in which they claimed to have reported that pieces of concrete were falling from the canopy. No one from Infrastructure responded.
THUNDEROUS SILENCE
Ten days after the tragedy, the director of the Railway Infrastructure of Serbia, Jelena Tanasković, did not once address the media, nor did she express her condolences to the families of the victims. On the website of this company, the latest news is a statement issued on the day of the tragedy, which claims that the canopy has not been reconstructed at the station, which was opened five months ago.
According to the contract on the reconstruction and modernization of the Belgrade-Subotica high-speed railway, which also included the reconstruction of the Novi Sad Railway Station, the investor in this project was the Railway Infrastructure of Serbia. Back in 2015, the company was working on two design solutions for train speeds of 160 and 200 km per hour, and in 2017, it gave the project assignment to the Traffic Institute CIP to do a conceptual design for the reconstruction of the Novi Sad Railway Station. In that design brief, the constructive reconstruction of the canopy was not foreseen.
Then, the Serbian Railway Infrastructure managed the project on behalf of the state, as an investor. According to the knowledge of "Vremen", this company had the obligation to carry out the technical control of the construction permit project in 2021, which was carried out by the consortium of Chinese companies CRIC - CCCC. The technical control was done by the company "Cestra", and their services were not paid for by Infrastructure but by a consortium of Chinese companies! So it turned out that those they projected controlled themselves.
Ten days after the tragedy, the investigation is at a standstill. And how could it not be when the wife of the former director of Infrastructure Nebojša Šurlan, Tijana Šurlan, is a respected member of the SNS and a judge of the Constitutional Court, when Jelena Tanasković is a confidant of Siniša Malog, when the company "Starting" that worked on the reconstruction of the roof Railway stations in Novi Sad, one of the largest contractors in the Belgrade on the Water project, which is also connected to Mali.
It is enough for the prosecution to take written warnings from engineer Zoran Đajić, who worked as a consultant for the company "Starting" and indicated that the condition of the concrete after the marble slabs were erected was very bad. According to the law, the contractor had to immediately inform the supervisor to stop the work based on Đajić's letter.
According to the information obtained by the weekly "Vreme", the supervision of this same project, and after a warning from the contractor, stopped the work on the reconstruction of the Backa Topola Railway Station, because it turned out that the roof was in a much worse condition than it was thought before the work began. Why was the same not done in Novi Sad? In addition to the company "Starting", domestic subcontractors on the reconstruction of the Railway Station in Novi Sad were the companies "Deko", "Drina-coop", "Tim-cop", "Izomont", "Otis", "Roming" and "Elebing".
A NAME FROM CHINA
The departure of the Prime Minister of the Serbian Government, Miloš Vučević, to China, on the day of the tragedy that occurred in the city of which he was the mayor, does not fall under criminal responsibility, but it shows a lack of any empathy towards the victims. It was painful to watch the Prime Minister, a native of Novi Sad, who fired and threatened that all those responsible would have to resign, share lessons - from China! The day after Vesić's resignation, Vučević gave his party colleagues - presumably Momirović and Jelena Tanasković - 24 hours to submit their resignations. He did not even mention his resignation, which is the basic demand of citizens' protests in Novi Sad and Belgrade.
It seems that there is no one to protect Momirović. By the way, factions in SNS have already started the fight for Vesić's seat. The most powerful minister in the government, Siniša Mali, is already preparing his candidate, and they are, as we unofficially learn, Dušan Borovčanin, the current director of the company EXPO, or Boris Bjelica, director of the Construction Directorate of Serbia. City planner Marko Stojčić and secretary for urban planning Marko Kulić are aspiring to the same position, as candidates of the other current in the party.
For progressives, the tragedy in Novi Sad is a finished story. This could be seen from the smiles of the party members who came to the meeting of the Main Board last week. As in the line from the closing credits of the cult series Theater in the house, "another day passes", and they and their privileges remain intact.
Less than two days of blockade - that's how long it took to see how weak and powerless the public media service is, both from the outside and from the inside. At the moment of writing this text, it is the eighth day of the blockade, and the sixth that RTS is not broadcasting its program. They also seem to be facing a strike inside the house. And the essence of blocking RTS is not in what it publishes, but in what it keeps silent
In the months after the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, the flames of rebellion spread throughout Serbia. The first protests started in Novi Sad right after the tragedy. The authorities responded with arrests, police cordons and intimidation, but instead of calming down the protesters, new protests followed.
The rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, has been the target of top state officials and regime tabloids for months, who label him as an insidious instigator of student protests, an opportunist, "the face of evil" and "the leader of the criminal octopus." How and why a rector became "state enemy number one"
"I'm standing in the cordon, and my daughter is shouting at me 'aw, aw, killers'. What should I do? If they ordered me - I would throw down my baton and bulletproof vest and stand on the side of my child," a police officer from the south of Serbia, who works as needed in the Belgrade Police Brigade, told "Vreme"
The recent formation of the Đura Macuta government is part of the regime's revenge and cynicism. This can be seen most in the "black troika" of new ministers appointed to deal with the parts of society that are the leaders and symbols of the big rebellion that lasted for several months, the cause of which was the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, which claimed 16 human lives. Education, universities, unsolicited media and parts of the judiciary that refuse to listen to orders, either publicly, with announcements, or hiding behind legal procedures, should be dismantled. Those who will have no problem doing everything they are told, even reinforcing the orders with their own inventions, are chosen for this.
Who mentions the extraordinary elections when the rating of the party in power is falling, and according to all surveys, Vučić is not the most important political factor in the country, but the students?
The brutal beating of students and citizens in Novi Sad shows that the regime is not only ready to take revenge - it is actually carrying it out
If in reality the principle of balance is violated - the way the incompetent regime violated the relationship between the concrete elements at the Novi Sad Railway Station - reality will behave like a canopy: it will fail to obey
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