The councilors of the Municipal Assembly (SO) of Kolašin adopted today the Decision on the budget for this year, which planned revenues and expenditures of almost 3 million euros.
The members of Democratic Montenegro announced at the beginning of the session of the SO that they will not participate in the work of the local parliament.
The decision on the budget for this year is projected to spend more than 960.000 euros on employee salaries, while capital expenditures are 590.000 euros.
The original local revenues are only about a fifth of the total revenues, which is about 725.000 euros.
The discussion about that decision lasted almost eight hours, which, according to the opinion of the ruling coalition of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), the Citizens' Group (GG) and the Social Democrats (SD), guarantees balanced revenues and expenditures.
The objections of the opposition councilors from the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Democratic Front (DF) were numerous and mainly related to very high amounts for public spending, that is, for salaries and other personal income.
Finance Secretary Dragan Bulatović said that he sees allocations for wages as "an investment in the future, not careless spending".
"Employees' earnings account for 26 percent of the total budget, and this is in line with European standards. Adopting such a budget creates conditions for efficient and effective functioning of local administration and self-government," he said.
He explained the need for new employment in the Municipality by the need for expert staff.
For each job position, he stressed, the approval of the Ministry of Finance will be sought and no one will be hired against the law.
As the president of the municipality, Milosav Bulatović, assessed, this year's budget has a developmental character and enables significantly higher support for agriculture, sports, cultural events, and vulnerable groups of fellow citizens.
GG councilor Gospava Vujisić, while praising the proposal for a decision on municipal revenues and expenditures, recalled what she called "numerous objections of the State Audit Institution (DRI) to the final account from 2017.
Salary increases, according to current plans, for the entire mandate period, said SDP councilor Bojan Zeković, will cost the citizens of Kolašin around one million euros.
"All this comes from agreeing to blackmail, which are someone's party interests. This is your political weakness. Three or four redundant employees cost as much as laptops for high school graduates, which you decided not to give away this year. According to what is planned, the structure of employees of the Municipality , it is not the need of the local administration, but the need to fulfill pre-election promises," said Zeković.
DF member Aleksanadar Dožić said that there are various projects that guarantee new employment, but that these are not employment in the local government.
Increasing the number of employees in the Municipality, he emphasized, must be a matter of real need.
"The budget you proposed does not give dynamism to the city, the possibility of new superstructure and relies mainly on public spending," he concluded.
The ruling coalition's councilors did not accept the amendment of the former president of the municipality Željka Vuksanović, according to which a part of the expenses for employees' wages would be redirected to the rehabilitation of a couple of local roads.
She proposed that the amount for wages should be reduced by about 230.000 and allocated for rehabilitation, that is, asphalting, the Starče-Ljevišta and Vlahovići-Maganik roads.
Vuksnović reminded that the current government did not inherit the debts of the previous government, but of its party comrades, who were in power until 2014.
Among those debts, she said, were about three million unpaid contributions to employees' wages.
"Increasing the number of employees is the thing that empties the budget the most. You think it is your duty to woo the voters in order to win the elections tomorrow. The one who does not have the courage to do household chores, he should not accept these responsibilities. It is not employment in the local government a way to prevent the departure of people from Kolašin. The local administration serves to help those who start to do something and to enable sustainable employment," said the SDP councilor.
Democrats will not participate in the work of local parliaments
The Democratic councilors announced at the beginning of the SO session that they would not participate in the work of the local parliament.
The head of the committee club of that party, Vladimir Martinović, before leaving the session with his party colleagues, said that it will be the same in other cities where the DPS is in power, "until the extra-institutional struggle is over."
According to him, in January, a real political earthquake happened in Montenegro, so everything that the opposition had known and claimed for a long time was exposed.
The "Envelope" affair, he claims, exposed the way in which the DPS "wins, that is, steals the elections in all the past years".
"The message is clear, the institutions of the state of Montenegro are illegitimate and they were elected in a way that was best evidenced by the "Envelope" affair. Evidence for this was given to you by your strategic investor and a friend of your party leader. We have a system of government based on corruption, organized crime, and you are aware of that when you are left alone. I understand your nervousness and anxiety," said Martinović, who was repeatedly interrupted by the councilors of DPS and GG.
He called the Kolasin ruling coalition "a coalition that does not wish the city well", and the budget proposal a document "which is anything but the interest of the people of Kolasin".
The president of the SO, Milan Đukić, after the departure of the Democrats, suffered numerous criticisms from the councilors of the ruling coalition, because, as they said, he "allowed Martinović to abuse the parliamentary chamber".
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