The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) promised before the elections in Cetinje that they would provide 1.000 euros for each first-born child. However, at the last session, the Assembly of the Capital City adopted a decision according to which the 1.000 euros can be received by a family that has seven children, one of which is triplets.
The ruling DPS does not answer the questions of "Vijesti" why this pre-election promise was broken, while the Cetinje opposition says that this is nothing new from the DPS.
The holder of the DPS electoral list, the then mayor of Prijestonica, Aleksandar Bogdanović, made the promise a few days before the elections on November 26.
"What we will also offer is 1.000 euros for each first-born child and for each first-born child up to the age of three, free kindergarten, in order to enable young married couples to focus on something that is the future of that family," said Bogdanović at the final debates at RTCG.
DPS won the elections a few days later, but lost absolute power, which is why it had to look for a partner - the Social Democrats.
However, on the agenda of the Assembly of the Capital on June 28, their councilors voted in favor of amending the Decision on forms of social and child protection and they do not correspond to the promise of the list holder.
It excluded the previous gift packages for newborns in the value of 30 euros, and instead introduced a new package of 100 euros for one child, 200 for twins and 600 euros for triplets.
Also, the aforementioned decision does not mention the promised free kindergarten.
The coalition Social Democrats point out that they did not make the mentioned promises, but that they believe that the recently adopted decisions are "just one of the ways by which we will facilitate the status of our children in Cetinje and increase the birth rate".
"Of course, a lot still needs to be done in that field, which the SD will insist on in the coming period, but in accordance with the budget funds available to the Capital", said the Cetinje board of the SD.
The opposition Citizens' Movement URA and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) say that DPS only makes promises, but delivers little, if anything.
"However, now they have gone a step further and violated the word given to our youngest fellow citizens, i.e. their parents. So 1.000 euros for a child, in DPS the fulfillment of the promise becomes 100 euros, and the parents will receive free kindergarten and the promised chocolate factory". SDP councilor Jovan Vako Đurić told "Vijesti".
Đurić adds that in the last eight years the SDP councilor club strongly insisted on pro-natal policies that would lead to an increase in the birth rate and a decrease in the trend of emigration from Cetinje, but that the government did not listen to it.
"That is why today we have the tragic situation that only 51 babies have been born in Cetinje since the beginning of the year, while unfortunately 104 of our fellow citizens have passed away, so we have an extremely negative natural increase. The gloomy picture of Cetinje families and the emigration of young people is also told by the fact that in Cetinje only 17 marriages were concluded, while the number of divorces is 22, making us the only municipality in Montenegro where there are more divorces than marriages," he said.
URA member Dobrinka Đorđić notes that among the key problems during the pre-election campaign, both the government and the opposition emphasized the drop in the birth rate and the departure of people from Cetinje, and therefore it is completely devastating that the local administration does not have a long-term strategy to deal with this burning problem "that threatens Cetinje to suffer its fate Rivers of Crnojević".
"Even the best infrastructural equipment, which Cetinje has been far from for centuries, would have no purpose if this trend of population decline continues, and those who exercise authority in Cetinje must be aware of that first of all. It is far from naive to think that 1.000 euros and free kindergarten filled up the maternity hospital in Cetinje, because this complex problem cannot be solved by one or two incentive measures, which is why we are recommending the development of a serious strategy, but it would certainly make it easier for parents to decide to expand their family and tie their place of residence to Cetinje," said the councilor HOORAY.
Pluzine: Each baby will receive from 500 to 4.000 euros
The President of the Municipality of Plužine, Mijuško Bajagić, decided to solve the problem of declining birth rates by giving the city 500 euros for each first-born, 1.000 for the second, and 2.000 for the third.
"Amounts are doubled if the applicant is the owner of a registered agricultural farm in a rural area," reads the proposed decision, which should be found at the next session of the Municipal Assembly.
Parents of children born on January 1, 2019 and later will have the right to help, with the condition that one of the parents has previously resided in the territory of Plužine for at least five years.
Mrvaljević: DPS does not approach the problem seriously
The president of the Cetinje Democrats, Danilo Mrvaljević, said that at the disputed session of the Capital Assembly, they demanded that the proposed amounts be tripled.
"If we are talking about a measure of one hundred euros for a newborn child, which is insultingly low, it can only have an additional effect on the anger and suffering of the citizens of Cetinje. During the parliamentary debate on this issue, we heard from the benches of the DPS that this is just a symbolic gift, the "attention" of the Capital and that they do not expect it to increase the birth rate, only to have their councilwoman boast in a statement that the day after this is a measure for the purpose of increasing the birth rate. This tells us how frivolously they approach this problem," said Mrvaljević for "Vijesti".
He added that Cetinje urgently needs a serious Demographic Development Strategy and that for the next budget year he will insist on a new amendment to the Decision on forms of social and child protection and at least triple the amounts as compensation for newborns.
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