Acting officers and assistants head in Budva

In the expectation that after two election processes, the first unsuccessful one in May, and now the one in November, a city administration will finally be formed, preferably a stable one that will have a mandate of four full years, Budva is still managed by the truncated administration of the arrested mayor. Milo Božović.

Božović, who has been in the detention cell of the Investigation Prison since mid-April last year on the charge of being part of a criminal group that smuggled tons of cocaine, is still at the head of the city. Božović's defense rejects the charges brought against him by the Special State Prosecutor's Office.

The chair of the leader of Budva went to him after a great election victory in October 2022 when he led the unified Democratic Front. Unfortunately, the administration that he has been heading since then, despite the fact that he has not been free for a year and a half, managed to bring Budva, which is the opinion of almost all political players in the past election cycles, to the very bottom.

Practically the entire administration is in acting condition, and what is even more interesting, of the total of eight secretariats, half of them do not even have a secretary, but are managed by assistants, some of whom are also acting. Thus, in Božović's administration, the chair of the Secretary of Finance was vacant (the advertisement was announced, but was never carried out to the end, despite the insistence of the Administrative Inspection). There is also no leading figure in the Secretariat for Urban Planning and Sustainable Development, and the appointment of a secretary is pending in the Secretariat for Social Activities, as well as in the Secretariat for the Economy. In other secretariats, secretaries have been appointed, most of whom are acting.

V. d. the situation is also in the City Manager's Service, in the Municipal Police and Inspection, as well as in most other services, but also in municipal enterprises, such as the Municipal and Waterworks, which "Vijesti" wrote about half a year ago. The situation has not changed.

All political actors warned that the situation in the Municipality is alarming, and that it is necessary to form a government as soon as possible, since any delay puts another tourist season in question, because the last one was one of the worst in the past five years by all parameters.

It is even the leader of the list "Budva is our city" Nikola Jovanovic in the invitation he sent to all political parties, the non-governmental sector and intellectuals at the beginning of last week, he stated the problems facing Budva, which are undoubtedly the result of the work of the current administration.

He indicated five key points around which solutions need to be found: rationalization of local self-government, unblocking of the city's institutions, solving the communal chaos, improving the city's infrastructure and rehabilitating the urban chaos.

Jovanović's five points are a picture of current Budva. "Vijesti" announced that the city administration is overbooked, and that there are more than two thousand employees, both in the Municipality and in its institutions, services, and companies. Instead of the number of workers decreasing from year to year, and rationalization being carried out, this did not happen, but the opposite.

Communal chaos was visible everywhere this summer, from garbage and dirt to illegal temporary locations, which were the main complaints against the current administration.

The end of the year is also the deadline by which the city authorities have to pass the budget for the following year, as well as the investment plan and the city development program. The city administration is already a full year late with the adoption of the five-year Program for the installation of temporary facilities. The old five-year plan expired on December 31, 2023, when a new one with a validity period of 2024 to 2028 was supposed to be enacted, but that did not happen. The epilogue of the dysfunctional Božović administration is the illegal temporary locations this summer on the promenade and not the observation of local inspection services to bring order. This is also dealt with by the Special State Prosecutor's Office.

Urban chaos is a problem that Budva has been facing for years, but it reached its peak during the current government, especially since 2016, when the Democratic Party of Socialists fell from power. Although at that time the opposition benches criticized the DPS for concreting Budva, since they took over the management of the city, instead of establishing order, housing construction in Budva has flourished, and the construction lobby is stronger than ever, dictating political trends.