Vučko Pešić from Bjelopolje, an agricultural record holder and well-known livestock farmer from the village of Vranštica near Bijelo Polje, claims that during the formation of clusters of livestock farmers and asphalting of rural roads from EU pre-accession funds, abuses were committed by municipal officials.
Last week, the president of the Malina Polimlja Association of Mulberry Growers, Andrija Delić, filed criminal charges against the director of the Directorate for Construction and Investments to the Special Prosecutor's Office due to alleged abuse in the implementation of IFAD's road asphalting project and the implementation of the project of the Bjelo Polje municipality and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Milanko Minic and Secretary for Entrepreneurship and Development Slobodan Jelic.
His property, where he and his wife Milijana and eight children raise 40 cattle, is only safe to reach by helicopter because the improvised wooden bridge, which branches off to the left from the regional road Sljepač most - Kovren, is risky even for pedestrians. Small cars are generally difficult to pass without damage. It is hard to imagine how, if there was a need for an ambulance, fire engine, truck for the transport of livestock, they would cross those 200 meters to the house. Children used to walk those 200 meters on a bad dirt road to school, and they have to carry tens, and more often hundreds of liters of milk every day.
However, the Municipality and relevant ministries did not listen to Pešić, the record holder in agricultural production, except when they wanted to show with foreign delegations how "young people stay and work hard in the countryside". The final straw, according to Pešić, was the illegal formation of a herdsman cluster and the selection of roads for asphalting from the IFAD project.
He explains that, as he stated, the "so-called" cluster of livestock farmers was formed on February 3, 2020, despite the cluster development project, which is a condition for withdrawing funds from the pre-accession fund for the development of agricultural production and transformation of rural areas, and that " the invited members were just a farce in Secretary Jelic's game".
In essence, he claims, it is a matter of fraud in the formation of clusters in order to pave road routes that were made for who knows what interests.
"We were invited by Jelić to establish a herdsmen's cluster, and the representative of the Ministry of Agriculture, Armin Spahić, also attended the meeting. Jelic's office invited 5-6 famous names from the field of cattle breeding and used the meeting to ask if we wanted to participate in the formation of a cluster of cattle breeders. As I was familiar with the project initiated by IFAD, but did not know how it works, I agreed. On the same day, without prior education, which was mandatory, they asked us as members of the cluster to propose travel routes, and Jelić insisted that we turn to the presidents of local communities and propose travel routes together, even though it is against the rules for municipal services to participate in the selection of travel routes, which I didn't know then," said Pešić.
He stated that he turned to the president of the MZ "Tomaševo" Vesko Gogić, who proposed two travel routes: Čokrlije - Muslići - Tomaševo, with a length of 500 meters, and Pavlovića most - Grančarevska kosa of the same length, while he proposed a travel route to his house in length of 205 meters.
Of those three road directions, which ran towards the Municipality, the Čokrlija - Muslići road was completed, while the others were not, although, as Pešić says, there were much fewer young people on that road than on or towards the Pavlović bridge. In addition to the illegal participation of the presidents of local communities, Pešić claims that out of 17 routes, a large number of which were proposed by the presidents of local communities, there were also two that were not proposed by any of the members, namely Grančarevo - Grubežići with a length of 500 meters, and Grančarevo - Skočigorina. - Repeater MZ "Čeoče" in length of 500 meters, the first of which is asphalted.
That it was all a farce, as he says, he was convinced later when he saw in the documents sent to the cluster president Edis Vreva that two members of the cluster are the presidents of the local communities "Bistrica" and "Dobrakovo", Sakib Čindrak and Rešad Hasanović, who are strictly prohibited from participating in the project due to possible abuses.
"Edis Vreva signed and delivered the list of travel directions to Armin Spahić on February 11, 2020, who addressed the proposal to the director of the Directorate for Investments, Minic," he says.
Minic previously told "Vijesti" that he has nothing to do with asphalting and agriculture as part of the IFAD project.
Pešić says that only after a few months, when he received a consolidated list of road routes, in order to see which road routes had "passed", he saw that there were also waterworks on the list, which no one had even mentioned.
His estate was visited by iFAD representatives, together with representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, who came to the farm to show that there are still young people in the village who are engaged in agriculture. He was also told then that he must apply for the travel direction, but nothing came of it either.
Due to the troubles he was having with the approach to his home, Pešić addressed the Municipality and various ministers of the Ministry of Agriculture several times, and on June 25, 2018, he addressed Igor Jovanović, coordinator of IFAD, and Minister of Agriculture Milutin Simović, and then as the president of the "Machine Ring" i.e. association of cattle breeders founded in 2010, sent a request to the same addresses for assistance in asphalting the roads to member's farms, to which he also did not receive a response.
He explained that he had sought a meeting with the President of the Municipality more than 20 times between last year and this year without success, and his deputy Nermin Bećirović, who received him in June of last year, explained to him, as he states, that through IFAD he could not gets a way home, but that he will "see that it is done through another project".
He found out later that the rules are not the same for everyone and that it is possible to bring asphalt to the house, which was also confirmed by the project coordinator for IFAD in Montenegro, Igor Jovanović, because in Nikšić Municipality, in Župa, a road to a house was built through a cluster of cheese producers. in 2019.
The well-known cheese producer reminds that through the Agrobudget and IFAD's public invitation, it is foreseen that the final beneficiaries of the project will be individuals, that is, individual farms, and he even offered his participation up to 30 percent, just to get a way home.
"It's terrible that one thing can be done for one, but the same thing can't be done for others, through the same projects, in another municipality, and that roads are not built where there are people, especially young people, who really work in agriculture and who are pushing through this project that these are travel routes that are registered with the Municipality," said Pešić.
This year, he complained because he was not even invited to the meeting of the herdsmen's cluster, which was also initiated by the same municipal service, so after talking with the president of the cluster, Edis Vrevo and Armin Spahić, he said that he was deliberately bypassed, after which he was invited from municipal services to come to the meeting the next day.
"At that meeting, I called on the members of the cluster not to sign the travel directions that Jelić had already prepared, for the reason that it was proposed by the presidents of the Ministry of Health or local self-government. I stated that the cluster is not registered anywhere, and that we exist only formally, that they only use us to sign travel directions in order to take advantage of us, as they did in previous years, and that I will not participate in that criminal act," said Pešić.
He left that meeting in revolt, and the members of the cluster still nominated his travel direction for 2021.
Jelić: Cluster of livestock farmers established in accordance with the law
The Secretary for Entrepreneurship and Development of the Municipality of Bijelo Polje, Slobodan Jelić, told "Vijesta" earlier, in response to similar accusations by the malnkeepers, that the formation of the herdsmen's cluster was done according to the law and described the procedures in detail, recalling that Edis Vreva was elected president of the herdsmen's cluster, and that in addition to the members, representatives of IFAD also attended the meetings.
"Also, in the meantime, representatives of local communities, citizens' associations and individuals initiate (propose) their priority travel routes, and it depends on the cluster whether a route will be accepted or not. After that, the authorized representatives of the local self-government visit all the proposed road routes and make the technical characteristics of the road and make the same entries on the exactly prescribed form, as well as the estimate (description of the works) and the estimate of the works, while the agricultural engineers fill out the application form, collecting data from the authorized representatives of the local communities. , which concern the number and age structure of the population and households, the number of livestock", says Jelić, adding that data processing is followed by an application to the relevant ministry with the participation of the Municipality in financing of 25,51 percent of the total value of the projects.
He emphasized that the acceptance of the project solely depends on IFAD.
"For the sake of comparison, for the year 2020, we applied for 16 road routes with a total length of approximately 10 km, and 10 were approved and 5,59 km paved. This year, we applied with 18 travel routes with a total suggested length of five kilometers. For 2018, 2019 and 2020, a total of 9,89 kilometers were asphalted," explains Jelić.
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