Councilors in the Municipal Assembly (SO) of Tivat today, by the majority of the ruling coalition, decided to build a local facility of general interest - a market and the necessary infrastructure on the plot behind the "Pine" hotel, i.e. between the residential blocks in Njegoševa, 21. Novembra Street and Trg. from culture.
It is the first administrative step in solving the issue of one of the main missing public buildings in Tivat, for which the conceptual solution will be chosen at a national architectural competition.
It is about land with a total area of 3.885 square meters, which, according to the current DUP Tivat-centar, is an urban plot intended for "communal infrastructure facilities".
Of the total area of the location, 1.040 square meters are intended for the construction of the market, which will have one above-ground floor with a maximum area of 956 square meters and two underground floors with a parking garage with a capacity of 66 spaces and accompanying technical premises in the function of the market.
Almost the entire land at this location is owned by the Municipality of Tivat, which intends to, in addition to building a market, enrich this area with additional public and horticultural facilities.
By the way, part of this location was planned for the construction of a large multi-storey parking garage in the earlier plans of the local government, but this was abandoned after the opposition of the tenants of the surrounding buildings.
Part of the tenants are now against the construction of the market and the arrangement of the square on this now neglected area, believing that the operation of the city market at that location will have a bad effect on their quality of life.
Liberal Party (LP) councilor Vatroslav Belan also expressed dilemmas in this sense in the discussion, stressing that "he is not sure that this location is the best solution for the market".
He warned that ten years ago, Tivat missed several good opportunities to properly arrange and use some larger locations in the city center, as well as that we should strive for the dispersion of various social and economic activities from the innermost city center to other parts of Tivat.
The secretary for urban planning, Milica Manojlović, said that the municipality of Tivat, which has only 46 square kilometers, "does not have an ideal location for almost any missing public facility", that the "least painful solutions" should be sought, and emphasized that many Mediterranean cities such as neighboring Dubrovnik or Barcelona have markets in the city center even in strict city pedestrian zones, and that the markets, which are an integral part of the Mediterranean way of life, if they are properly designed and maintained, will not reduce the quality of life of the surrounding residents.
With the remarks of the opposition councilors from the LP, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) that the realization of capital investments is catastrophically weak, the Council of Ministers adopted the semi-annual report on the total receipts and total expenditures of the Municipality's budget for 2024 by the majority of the ruling coalition.
"The dynamics of the budget implementation in the first six months of 2024 indicate that there is little work on infrastructure and public facilities and that we are not thinking in time how we will solve some of the city's key problems, such as the catastrophic traffic and inadequate infrastructure and atmospheric sewage, which is why we have more and more frequent floods "Investments in those two areas must be increased urgently," Belan pointed out.
"The data for the first half of the year are scandalous from the perspective of the development of this city, but also from the aspect of realized revenues, which amounted to only 41 percent. The municipality of Cetinje already has 110% of realized budget revenues for this year, and here in Tivat there are always some problems and making excuses at the expense of others", assessed Ćazim Lisičić (SDP).
Mayor Željko Komnenović (The People Wins) pointed out that the data for half a year is outdated, especially since in that period of the year the realization of capital investments is mostly just being prepared through the implementation of tenders, and that in the meantime the situation has changed significantly.
"Today, we have a situation where 80 percent of the revenue side and over 50 percent of the expenditure side of the capital budget have been realized. At the moment, over two million euros worth of new roads are being built, and in a few days, the construction of a new water supply and sewerage infrastructure will begin in Radovići. is also for storm water, worth 2,25 million euros. As for Cetinje, that city receives ten million euros from the public budget every year, and we do not receive a single cent, but the municipality of Tivat generates all of our income." , Komnenović stated.
The Council of Ministers approved the new prices for the services of the local Water Supply and Sewerage, set by the Regulatory Agency for Energy and Regulated Eco-Communal Activities, according to which citizens will pay 28 percent more water next year, and legal entities 3,9 percent cheaper.
Sewerage services for citizens will be 41 percent more expensive, and for legal entities the price increase is 5,6 percent.
For both categories of consumers, the so-called fixed fees for the water supply, that is, the connection to the sewage system.
SO considered the report of the State Audit Institution (DRI), which gave a double negative assessment to the final account of the budget of the Municipality of Tivat for 2023, solely because the state auditors considered that certain budget items should be recorded and presented differently compared to how they are in Tivtu has been working for years, and they pointed out that there were no fraudulent actions or attempts to embezzle public funds in the final budget account.
The city leaders repeated their previously publicly expressed views on the account of the SAI, which, as they pointed out, did not audit the Municipality of Tivat for 11 years while DPS was in power, nor did it accept Mayor Komnenović's invitation to audit the final budget account for 2020 when is the DPS that lost power, left the city in millions of debts and with an almost empty coffers.
"This was not at all a partnership relationship between the SAI and the Municipality of Tivat, which is indicated by the fact that we implemented 90 percent of their recommendations during the audit procedure itself, but they still presented them in the final report as our alleged shortcomings and inconsistencies. Last year will remain recorded as one of the most budget-successful in the history of Tivat with 92% realization of planned capital investments, and with such a controversial report by the SAI, we are being sent a message that it is actually better for us not to do anything that the citizens expect from the municipality," Komnenović pointed out.
Belan said that he "honestly understands the President of the Municipality" because he himself, as president of the LP, has problems with the findings of the SAI about the party's operations, but he emphasized that "we should not mention the political connotation in the work of an independent institution like the SAI, if we all want to build an orderly democratic society, then when that independent institution criticizes you".
The vice-president of the Municipality, Jovan Brinić (Krtoljska lista), disagreed with this, and told Belan that referring to someone's alleged supreme authority, such as the DRI, should not prevent anyone from thinking critically and logically, and that the work of the DRI in this case, he considers meaningless and in ultimately, harmful to citizens.
"They gave us a negative opinion because, in the total amount, we 'broke' the so-called materiality threshold of 500.000 euros because they didn't like how we booked certain budget expenditures. They insist that the millions allocated from the budget for expropriation, which are par excellence capital expenditures, because we use them to buy real estate on which infrastructure and public facilities will be built, we do not record them as alleged court costs. Likewise, they request that some items that have been recorded in the Municipality of Tivat and the entire state administration for the sake of clarity and transparency in one place, they 'break' into smaller items and book them in several other different places in the budget. This is complete nonsense, it is not in the spirit of the SAI's supposed official mission to improve the work of the administration, but on the contrary - it will only complicate and slow down our work, and will make each subsequent budget of the Municipality much more non-transparent than it was in all the past years, even when the DPS was in power here," Brinic pointed out.
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