The President of the Municipality of Pljevlja, Dario Vraneš, has banned local government employees from attending today's consultative meeting, which was supposed to discuss the removal of barriers on the Glisnicka River in order to free up fish migrations during the spawning period.
This is claimed by Vaso Knežević from the NGO "Let the Village Live", which was one of the organizers of today's meeting.
"The consultative meeting was proposed by the NGO Eco Team and the NGO Da zaživi selo, with the aim of removing the existing barriers on the Glisnicka River, a tributary of the Ćehotina River in the municipality of Pljevlja, in order to free the migration of salmonid fish species during spawning. In addition, each relevant local service and secretariat, as well as the president's office, duly and on time received an invitation to the meeting with an explanation of the aforementioned issue. All competent bodies of the Municipality of Pljevlja confirmed their presence, except for the president's office, but the night before the meeting, the president of the Municipality of Pljevlja, Dario Vraneš, sent a message to his employees on the Viber group that none of the employees of the Municipality of Pljevlja had permission to attend the aforementioned meeting organized by "some" NGOs," Knežević said in a statement.
He assessed Vranes' actions as deviant.
"This is a purely deviant act by the Mayor, which is not in line with a democratic and civilized society, and is more in line with an autocratic style of government, i.e. autocracy!!! I hereby call on other participants in government at the local level, especially representatives of civic political parties, to condemn this relationship of (non)communication between the Municipality of Pljevlja and the NGO sector. I also inform the entire public of Pljevlja and Montenegro that the autocratic style of the Mayor is leading this city to a past, less civilized time, to which the majority of the citizens of Pljevlja do not belong, or at least I hope that they do not belong to those goals of retrograde politics," Knežević said in a statement.
He also provided the media with a Viber message that the mayor sent to local government employees.
"Dear colleagues, tomorrow some NGOs have organized a meeting regarding the Glisnička River. No one has permission to attend it on behalf of the municipality, we must first hold an internal meeting to take a common position on the issue," Vraneš said in a message he sent to his colleagues.
Vranes announced that he would make a statement on this issue later because he is currently on a business trip.
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