The government intends to purchase a 4.200 square meter facility in Donja Gorica owned by the "Čelebić" company for student accommodation needs, and 6,32 million euros will be paid for this from the current budget reserve.
This is stated in the Information on the purchase of this property, which was approved by the Economic Policy Commission (EPC) on Tuesday, and the final decision should be made at the Government session. The proposer of this document is the Secretary General of the Government Dragoljub Nikolic, which is not a common case in its procedures, as documents are usually proposed by line ministers.
The company "Čelebić" is owned by Tomislav Čelebić, who, along with former president Milo Đukanović, is one of the founders of the private University of Donja Gorica, in whose immediate vicinity the facility for which the Government is preparing money is located.
"Vijesti" has access to the Information stating that the State Property Administration will be tasked with carrying out activities on behalf of Montenegro to purchase real estate with a maximum value of 6,32 million, and that the Director of the State Property Administration Koča Đurišić conclude a purchase and sale contract and that the Administration, after registration in the real estate cadastre, hand it over to the Public Institution "Dom učenika i studenata Podgorica" for the purpose of increasing accommodation capacity for students.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation and the Čelebić Company mutually terminated the purchase and sale contract for the facility at the beginning of November last year after the department made a decision to cancel the tender announced in the summer of 2024, in which the starting price for this purchase of student accommodation was 2,9 million euros excluding VAT.
The contract, worth 6,3 million euros, was signed on October 21st, and the Minister Anđela Jakšić Stojanović On the same day, it also requested the opinion of the institution of the Protector of Property and Legal Interests.
"Vijesti" was then confirmed by several sources that the Protector, among other things, stated in his opinion that the purchase of the home should have been carried out by the department responsible for state property and that this legal transaction was exempt from the Public Procurement Law, so he indicated to the Ministry of Education that it was obliged to terminate the contract.
Article 14 of the Public Procurement Law provides that this regulation does not apply to “the purchase or lease of land, buildings or other immovable property, as well as rights related to them.
In mid-February 2024, the Government considered the first information from the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation regarding the lack of space in dormitories for accommodating students in Podgorica, and in mid-April gave the green light for the rental or purchase of the facility.
Silence
After the contract was terminated, the Government gave the green light to the State Property Administration to accommodate the students in the facility of the "Čelebić" Company as an interim solution at a monthly price of around 50.000 euros.
The government then concluded by tasking the State Property Administration, which is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property, to find a permanent solution for student accommodation, that is, to carry out the procedure and purchase an appropriate facility.
Nikolić did not respond to questions from "Vijesti" yesterday, including the question of stating the legal basis that allows him to propose this document for the Government, and whether this means that by following such procedures he can propose, for example, a secretary in a ministry.
Not even from the Ministry of Spatial Planning, which is headed by the Minister Slaven Radunović The questions of whether the purchase of a facility was proposed, which one and for what amount, whether the Ministry checked the documentation and if the documentation is in accordance with the regulations, were not answered, which is why the Ministry is not nominating it for the Government session, but rather the General Secretariat is doing so.
"Given that the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property did not prepare or nominate the aforementioned document, we suggest that you forward the questions to the General Secretariat of the Government," this government department responded.
Two different estimates
The document, which "Vijesti" has access to, states that in accordance with the Ministry of Education's specification, the Property Administration Commission determined on December 17 last year that only the property owned by "Čelebić City" located in Donja Gorica met the conditions in accordance with the submitted specification. Then, on December 19, 2024, the Ministry of Education submitted to the Administration an assessment of the property in question, made on September 26, 2024, by a court expert and an authorized appraiser, but in order to implement the Government's conclusion, the Administration concluded a contract on the assessment of the property with another court expert and appraiser on December 27, 2024.
It is further stated that on March 27, a meeting was held between representatives of the Property Administration and the company "Čelebić", and that the Administration, as an interested buyer, made an offer to purchase the property in question, but its representatives rejected it and stood by their offer.
"As the two individual assessments differ significantly, in terms of the estimated value, the Administration informed the Ministry of Education, which on April 7, 2025, proposed that the Administration form an independent commission composed of experts, which would conduct a realistic assessment of the market value of the property, or conduct an analysis of the existing submitted assessments," reads the document submitted by Nikolić for the KEP.
Then, on May 8th of this year, the State Property Administration formed a Commission consisting of five appraisers, three of whom were economic and financial professionals and two were construction professionals, which on July 1st submitted a Report on the assessment of the market value of the real estate of the “Čelebić” Company to Đurišić.
"On July 11, 2025, the State Property Administration submitted a report to the Ministry of Education on the assessment of the market value of the property with equipment. The Ministry of Education submitted the information in question to the General Secretariat and the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism, State Property and the Ministry of Finance for their opinion and action," the document states, which does not list the property value assessments that were made.
Vuković supported the job
The document prepared by Nikolić also contains the opinion of the Ministry of Finance, signed by Minister Novica Vuković, which recalls that this department has already given a positive opinion for this initiative and that there are 6,3 million euros in the current budget reserve for this purpose.
The document does not contain the opinion of the Ministry of Spatial Planning.
Jakšić Stojanović did not respond to "Vijesti"'s question on this topic yesterday, and the editorial office did not receive a comment from the "Čelebić" company either.
Last school year, 714 students were left without a dormitory space
Nikolić's Information states that last school year, 2.223 students applied for 1.509 places, which means that 714 students were left without their accommodation needs met.
"Considering that the existing capacities of the Public Institution Students' Home
Podgorica are fully occupied, as well as the fact that housing prices on the real estate market in the Capital are extremely high and inaccessible to student budgets, providing additional accommodation capacities for students in Podgorica is a priority of particular importance," the document states.
It is stated that since November 2024, according to the Government's decision, space has been rented for student accommodation, which has housed over 150 students during that period.
"Given that this is a rental, the limiting factor was the lack of organized student meals in the space, while organizing one would increase interest in student accommodation even more."
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