The President of the Municipality of Tivat, Željko Komnenović (People Win) welcomed the fact that the local parliament finally adopted the budget of the Municipality of Tivat for 2026 last night.
Reflecting on the turbulent events at this multi-hour session, which was marked by an open conflict between the mayor and the president of the Tivat Municipal Assembly (MA), Miljan Marković (Nova), and some councilors from the ruling alliance, Komnenović assessed today that "the entire discussion before and during the adoption of the budget within the parliamentary majority brought a bad atmosphere, a bitter taste for me, but also for all the people of Tivat, at a time when the city is recording progress and advancement."
"It is simply incredible that within the parliamentary majority we have a discussion that only serves the forces that were defeated in the 2020 elections. This is a continuation of the obstructions that led to the budget not being voted on in December. It is also incredible that we were put in a situation where a decision on temporary financing had to be made. And no one has ever recorded that councilors who make up the parliamentary majority are voting against the budget (?!), "said the Tivat mayor.
The budget was adopted on the verge of a quorum, with only 17 councilors from the ruling coalition in the hall, of whom 15 voted "for", one against, and one councilor abstained. This was preceded by a nervous reaction from some councilors from the ruling majority who were in conflict with the mayor, because the councilors from the opposition DPS, who were at that moment providing the parliament with a quorum, also remained in the assembly hall. The president of the municipal assembly, Marković, therefore, asked the mayor "do we have a majority with the DPS", to which the latter reacted violently, so the president of the parliament corrected himself by emphasizing that he "did not mean a majority, but a quorum".
Marković, for unexplained reasons, called a break before the budget vote. During the break, DPS councilors left the hall, so the ruling coalition had to persuade all 17 of its councilors, including the three who are in conflict with the mayor, to return in order to maintain a quorum and vote for the budget.
In this regard, Komnenović emphasized in a statement today that after everything that has happened, "I suspect that attempts to spin the public could follow, primarily by those who created a bad atmosphere and orchestrated the entire budget issue."
"So far, opposition councilors have attended the sessions of the Municipal Assembly, and now there is the ruling of the Administrative Court. Attempts to discredit me in terms of my alleged collusion with the opposition at the session are a cheap bait. I guess the people of Tivat know who was at the head of the movement and whose name was in the name of the civic list that led to an electoral victory against those who ruled it sovereignly for three decades and who fought crime. Such scenarios have not been possible before, and they will not be in the future," he said.
He pointed out that "the topic of the city budget has been perfidiously used for political gain over the position of director of the Public Utilities Company" and that the public should know this.
The Board of Directors of Komunalni recently gave a new mandate to the current director of the municipal company, Vučeta Stanišić (The People Win), even though the New Serbian Democracy expressed its ambition to take over the management of Komunalni to its coalition partners in the local government, and the Speaker of Parliament and leader of the Municipal Organization of Nova Tivat, Miljan Marković, even personally applied for the position of the new director of the municipal company.
"This is obviously what the information from the Commission for the alleged investigation of the operations of FC 'Arsenal' serves. Regardless of all the pressures of that kind, during my mandate I will not allow unscrupulous management of important processes in the city, as is being attempted. A solution should be reached through dialogue, not blackmail. The budget has been adopted, which is good news for the city. The bad news for all those who have tried or are trying to do so is that I will not tolerate blackmail or pressure," Komnenović concluded.
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