The Pljevlja Municipal Assembly was adjourned today after almost two hours of work, after a minor misunderstanding occurred between the President of the Municipal Assembly, Jovana Tošić, and the head of the New Serbian Democracy councilors' club, Marko Potparić, who are coalition partners.
After the Nova and DNP councilors left the session, the assembly was left without a quorum, so the president of the local parliament called a recess.
Even after the break, the Nova and DNP councilors did not appear in the hall, so the president adjourned the session, and she will inform the councilors about its continuation later.
The misunderstanding occurred after Potparić, on behalf of the club, requested a reply to the presentation by DPS deputy Haris Alavać. After Tošić told him that a reply to a reply was not allowed, he requested a procedural response.
"Call me and tell me which member is in violation of the rules of procedure... Colleague, please don't talk to me or give me anything with your hands," Tošić said to Potparić while he was speaking from his seat.
When Potparić threatened to interrupt the session, Tošić told him, "Go ahead, interrupt the session, there's nothing controversial."
At the moment when DPS councilor Dragiša Sokić was at the podium, Nova councilors left the session.
The session was adjourned at the moment when the agenda included a discussion on the Proposal for a Decision on Amendments to the Statute of the Municipal Company Lokalni putevi, which, in addition to providing road maintenance, construction and cleaning services, allows the company to also organize urban and suburban transport in Pljevlja in the future.
"What is a pre-election promise of the New Serbian Democracy, suburban transport, seems to be currently not able to be adopted because the colleagues from the New Serbian Democracy Committee Club left this session and we do not have a quorum to continue work and decide on this agenda item," said Tošić.
Last year, Vranes announced the organization of urban and suburban transportation, and local parliament members, when adopting this year's budget, allocated funds for the purchase of vehicles.
"The company DOO 'Lokalni putevi' will be the project leader, and the Mayor, Dr. Dario Vraneš, has promised that public transport will be organized by September 1, or by the beginning of the new school year. In this way, the aim is to create conditions for students from rural and urban areas to get to school more easily. Immediately after the initiative was launched, intensive work began on organizing public and suburban transport," the Mayor's Office recently announced.
The President of the Municipality of Pljevlja said at the end of last year that the new school year should no longer be allowed to begin without the transportation of students and all other citizens being resolved. He believes that Pljevlja cannot develop further without organizing passenger transportation.
Opposition representatives criticized the proposed decision because they believe that
DPS councilor Haris Alavać said that "some techno-economic analysis should have been done to determine whether he could, knew how, and for what price to perform that service."
"We want to take all business into local public companies. What we want is to close down everyone who is engaged in private business in Pljevlja. I guarantee you that this company will spend over half a million euros a year," said Alavać.
He said that instead of promoting private business and trying to negotiate with private individuals in Pljevlja who are involved in transportation, to make a five-year contract and subsidize these routes, and I guarantee that with much less funds, we are taking the risk of burdening this company and the citizens' budget for the sake of
Secretary of the Secretariat for Communal and Housing Affairs, Transport and Water, Vule Macanović, said that the local government entered into this business because the Local Communities and the population from rural areas asked them to do so.
"We don't want to stifle anyone. If the carriers who have recently shown interest in driving us wouldn't be talking about this today... It is undeniable that this will cost our budget, but we want to please our people," said Macanović.
Independent councilor Saša Ječmenica said that "there are many cheaper options to complete the story of public transportation."
Nova councilor Božidar Jelovac said that private transporters had 20 years to take over transportation, but they did not do so.
"They have no interest and therefore they don't want subsidies and a local company must take over," said Jelovac.
He accused the opposition of sabotaging the implementation of this project.
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