Although the prime ministers and ministers of all Montenegrin governments in the last 20 or more years have continuously promised Ulcinj a privileged status with investments worth more than one billion euros, the city will wait for a renaissance for at least another four years.
This can be concluded from the short list of key priority infrastructure projects, worth 2,13 billion euros, which the Government recently adopted. In that document, only two projects are planned for Ulcinj - the construction of a new gymnasium building and, indirectly, a transmission line from Virpazar. That is slightly less than 0,2 percent of those 2,13 billion.
The short list contains 36 projects, which will be financed from the Government budget, EU funds and other sources, but even this time the Secretariat for Development Projects and the National Investment Commission nowhere mention the long-announced regulation of the Bojana basin, the rehabilitation of Port Milena and Solana, the promised development of the nautical tourism, construction of airports, sports halls, mega marinas...
On Tuesday, "Vijesti" asked the Government Public Relations Bureau for an answer as to why there are no significant projects related to the municipality of Ulcinj on the short list, but the answer did not arrive until yesterday.
Ulcinj's Skender Elezagić, a long-time member of the SO and head of the Ulcinj SDP, said that the fact that the government allocated 2,13 billion to Ulcinj for the construction of a new gymnasium speaks volumes about the attitude of the current government towards that city. And that, as he stated, is surprising since Ulcinj is currently the most "regime" city in Montenegro, where in the last elections over 90 percent of voters voted for the ruling parties.
"Ulcinj received only 0,2 percent of the money intended for capital projects in the next three years. The government planned to solve major traffic problems in some cities with significant investments in the construction of bypasses, invest in wastewater treatment systems in other municipalities, build sports facilities, reconstruct cultural and historical monuments, and increase competitiveness by equipping business zones with infrastructure. But all of that will bypass Ulcinj this time," said Elezagić.
The Government's list includes, among other things, the management of the Piva and Tara watersheds, the hydroelectric power plants on Morača and Komarnica, the Ionian-Adriatic gas pipeline, the ecological reconstruction of the Pljeval thermal power plant, the development of the Tivat airport, waste treatment projects in Bar, Rožaj, Kolašin, Berane...
And, ten or more years ago, ministers and vice-presidents of the Government, in regular and extraordinary visits, promised the citizens of Ulcinj the realization of projects in numerous areas.
"With a study on nautical tourism, the construction of a marina with 350 berths is planned. Regional development projects of Velika plaža, prepared by the German investment company DEG, define the largest investment activities in the area. There is also Ada, for which we have initiatives amounting to over 700 million euros", said one of the Deputy Prime Ministers back in 2006...
Two years later, the then Minister for Economic Development said "that soon in Ulcinj we will be able to boast of projects implemented by the most eminent European companies". And he asserted that Ulcinj will soon become a world-recognized destination and that the state will take responsibility for the projects of fast and modern roads and nothing less than the construction of an airport...
Ulcinj ecologist Dželal Hodžić said that it is incomprehensible that the Government treats Ulcinj in such a way and that it is incomprehensible that the local authorities do not have a vision for the preservation, protection, rehabilitation and revitalization of resources. He said that the list (which is a product of the lack of cooperation between the Government and the Municipality with the civil sector) had to include the rehabilitation of Ulcinj's resources, which are collapsing and becoming a limiting factor for development on the basis of the green economy.
"Šasko Lake is "aging" because of the buried channel that connects it with Bojana. How much does that investment cost? And the one for the construction of levees to prevent the floods that we fear every year? Couldn't 2,13-3 million euros be set aside from the 4 billion, which is necessary to start the production of salt at the salt pan", asked Hodžić.
He also mentioned the problem in the Štoj settlement, which does not have sewage, although it accounts for more than 60 percent of the total tourist traffic of the city.
The infrastructure is bad
The Dean of the Faculty of Business and Tourism in Budva, Rade Ratković, told "Vijesti" that the general infrastructure, especially communal and traffic, is the bottleneck of Montenegrin tourism and that the situation is particularly complex when it comes to the municipality of Ulcinj.
"The problem of pollution in Port Milena is known, and we are working on its remediation. However, in the long term, only the solution of an integral sewage system, which would cover the wider hinterland of Velika plaža, is sustainable. Without that, there is no real solution, not even for the valorization of the existing scarce tourist capacities, let alone for their development. This applies equally to the entire Ulcinj Riviera, which is our greatest potential for the development of sustainable resort tourism," said Ratković.
He added that the bottleneck is also traffic, especially the one that should ensure the comfortable arrival of air tourists from nearby airports (Tivat, Dubrovnik, Podgorica).
"The traffic jam in Sutomor, which holds up traffic for several hours during the season, is worrying, as well as the too slow flow of traffic from Debeli Brijeg along the entire Montenegrin coast. "Now that the hotels in the Velika plaža area are being renovated and modernized and have attracted the attention of the largest European tour operators, there is a great danger that we will fall on the traffic infrastructure," said Ratković.
He pointed out that infrastructural problems threaten to completely devalue the efforts of tourism officials to return Montenegrin tourism to the strongest emission markets in Europe.
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