The President of the Municipality of Ulcinj, Genci Nimanbegu, said that whether he will call on all Albanian parties to leave the Government will depend on Prime Minister Milojko Spajić's response to the request to cancel the recent tender for the lease of Ulcinj's swimming pools.
As "Vijesti" reported, the company "Eagle Hills", allegedly backed by Arab capital, offered the highest monetary compensation for more than ten beaches on Velika Plaza at a public auction that ended yesterday at the JP headquarters in Budva.
These are iconic beaches such as "Saranda", "Adritaica", "Imepriala", "Hilla", "Mojita", "Habana", "Safarija", "Tropikana", "Korala", part of "Pearl Beach", "Barbosa"...
"The Prime Minister says that these are legal procedures, the question is how he will respond to our demands. We have made it clear to him and we expect him to respond publicly and directly to what he can do based on these demands. If we are not satisfied, and we are not satisfied, we will use everything the local community has, from the Ulcinj Municipal Assembly, citizen protests, and I am thinking of calling on all Albanian political parties to leave the government," said Nimanbegu after a meeting with Spajić regarding the recently concluded tender for the lease of the beach, which caused anger among the tenants because many of them, due to the new scoring method, could be left without the beaches they have owned for years and even decades.
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He stated that he conveyed to the Prime Minister the joint statements of the Albanian Forum, the Albanian Alliance, the Democratic Union of Albanians and the local community, the Municipality of Ulcinj - that such a tender and outcome is unacceptable.
"For us as a community, I and all other parties warned in time what could happen when the tender procedure is not prepared in this way, when the new law was submitted by the Association of Municipalities, and we asked for the tender to be canceled and for the Draft Law on the Maritime Domain to go into procedure as soon as possible," said Nimanbegu. He said that he thought "that we had been clear and loud enough why we think this is against the interests of Ulcinj."
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"I would call this a sea landing on Ulcinj by an investor who was founded five or six days ago, and you have problems in other municipalities as well when it comes to those million-dollar offers. Therefore, this is yet another proof that we need to think more about our citizens and not go into something that is not in the interest of local communities under some legal forms," said Nimanbegu.
MP and DUA leader Mehmed Zenka asked whether a billionaire should be selling deck chairs and umbrellas or whether there is something else behind it.
"They are encroaching on the 50 million euros that citizens and tenants have invested in Ulcinj over the last 20 years. They are encroaching on the most developed sector of Ulcinj and Montenegro, and overnight someone comes and occupies 4,5 kilometers of beach, what will happen to them? How will that affect the contracts that tenants have, how will it affect tourism that we expect like rain from a desert. Simply put, people are coming out overnight with huge investments... How will a new investor arrive to put the beaches in order, something that took people ten, 15 years to do," Zenka asked.
He assessed that all the shortcomings of the Maritime Domain Act were evident.
"The coastal zone has been earning 12 million euros from Ulcinj for the last four years, 20 million euros for the last 50 years, and three and a half million have not been invested in Ulcinj, is there any justice in that? We are asking for a new Law on the Coastal Zone where the Municipality of Ulcinj does not need to cover 57 percent of the entire coastal zone territory," said Zenka. He stated that it is suspicious that a company would be formed overnight and take 70 percent of Ulcinj's most well-maintained beaches.
"The whole city is waiting to see what we will say when we return, and we don't have any good news right now," said Zenka.
The meeting with Spajić was also attended by MP Artan Čobi and the Vice President of the Municipality of Ulcinj Petar Delić.
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