At today's session, members of the Pljeval parliament adopted a decision by which they increased their fees for working in the local parliament, and voted for citizens to increase the price of water and the price provided by the municipal utility company Komunalne usluge.
All present councilors of the parliamentary majority Nova, Democrats, Movement for Pljevlja and Europe voted for the increase in councilor fees, while councilors from the Democratic Party of Socialists and the Bosniak Party did not attend the session at the time of the vote.
These two parties abstained during the vote to include the proposal in the agenda of today's session.
Councilor of Nova Božidar Jelovac said that from October 1, instead of 150 euros, councilors will receive a fee of around 270 euros.
Jelovac said that councilors' fees have not been increased since 2014.
Jelovac added that the novelty in the new decision is that the councilors do not have to attend the sessions of the local parliament, nor justify the reason for their absence, in order to receive compensation, which was the case until now.
The votes of Nova, Demokrat and Movement for Pljevlja councilors approved the proposal of the Board of Directors of the Waterworks to increase water prices.
The new prices, approved by the Regulatory Agency for Energy and Regulated Utilities, will be applied from January 1 of the following year.
Councilors from the ruling Europe Now Movement, the Democratic Party of Socialists and the Bosniak Party were against it.
In DPS, they believe that the burden of the price increase should have been transferred to the local administration, through subsidies to Vodovod from the municipal budget.
Biljana Đondović, the acting director of the Waterworks, said that if the councilors did not give their consent, the price of water should be reduced by ten percent, with the result that the municipality would be obliged to subsidize the company with 350 to 400 thousand euros.
From the first of January, the citizens of Pljevlja pay a cubic meter of water at a price that is reduced by ten percent compared to the December bill, and this price will be valid until the end of the year.
The citizens of Pljevlja got a lower water price thanks to the fact that the local parliament, in which the DPS with its coalition partners had a majority, did not hold a session last year at which consent was to be given to the new prices established by the Regulatory Agency for Energy and Regulated Utilities .
The regulatory price for energy and regulated utility activities at the end of last year determined the price of water for the citizens and the economy of Pljevlja, which should have been increased between eight and ten percent compared to last year's price.
Due to the complex way in which it is calculated, it is difficult to state how much the increase in the price of water is, because it will depend on consumption, given that there is a fixed and variable part of the bill on which the final amount of the bill depends.
Vodovod has calculated that households that consume 10 cubic meters per month will receive a monthly bill of 9,88 euros including VAT, which is 3,54 euros or 55,91 percent more than the previous bill.
For the same amount of water, legal entities will pay 16,58 euros or 16,05 percent more than before.
Households that consume 30 cubic meters per month will receive a bill of 25,86 euros, which is 76,17 percent higher than the current bill.
Legal entities for that amount of water will pay 44,42 euros or 26,87 percent more than before.
The fixed part of the accounts will be at least 12,77 percent for households and will amount to 1,89 euros, and for legal entities 2,65 euros and will be less by 32 percent.
Along with water bills, the service of receiving and removing municipal waste water is shown.
Biljana Đondović, Acting Director of the Water Supply Company, said that the main reason why the prices of the variable part of services are increasing is that there are no subsidies from the Municipality for the payment of operating expenses of the Water Supply Company for the year 2024.
"Those subsidies are included as an element for determining the regulatory income, that is, the price of services. Subsidies were not planned for 2023 either, however, since the Company did not receive approval for prices from the Municipal Assembly of Pljevlja, temporary prices will be applied in 2023, which are 10 percent lower than in December 2022," she said. is Đondović to "Vijesta". She took over the management of the waterworks two and a half months ago.
Last year, Vodovod operated with a loss of almost 235.000 euros, while the total undistributed loss from previous years reached the amount of 2,65 million euros.
Democratic councilor Igor Joksović said that the biggest part of the company's expenses is the wages of the employees.
The President of the Board of Directors of Vodovod, Miroslav Anđelić, recently announced that the former management of Vodovod, led by DPS personnel, hired ten new workers for an indefinite period of time in April and May alone, and for several of them, who were hired under a work contract, extended their contracts until the end of the year.
Joksović suggested that vulnerable groups of citizens be granted a subsidy on the price of water.
DPS member Haris Alavać said that in Pljevlja, after the latest price increase, water will be the most expensive of all cities in Montenegro, except for those that get water from the Regional Water Supply.
He expressed doubt that the other municipal companies will resort to increasing the prices of their services.
Commenting on the increase in the services of the Komunalne usluge company, which manages the city cemetery, market and animal shelter, the president of the Board of Directors, Dušan Jović, said that the price of services will increase by 30 to 40 percent. He also said that the price of the annual maintenance of the tombs remains the same.
He said that the additional income of the company after the price increase will amount to 68,5 thousand euros, the most from funeral services is about 62.000 euros.
In the Europe Now movement, they believed that the burden of solving problems in communal services should not be solved at the expense of citizens.
Yesterday, among other things, the Assembly adopted a decision on the formation of a commission that will make changes to the Statute of the Municipality of Pljevlja, which, according to the DPS, is being done so that in the future, instead of November 20, the municipal day will be celebrated on October 27, on Good Friday, when On that date, Pljevlja was liberated twice in 1912 and 1918 from Turkish and Austro-Hungarian occupation.
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