A few days ago, Radio Television of Montenegro (RTCG) published a ranking list for solving the housing needs of employees, according to which 90 workers should receive real estate on favorable terms, for 705 euros per square meter.
191 employees responded to the RTCG advertisement, and some of the workers who remained below the line, "Vijesti" has learned, have announced complaints because they are dissatisfied with the way the Commission for Resolving Housing Needs did its job.
The criteria for resolving housing needs, according to the Rulebook adopted in November last year, were: the importance of the job, the existing housing situation, the number of family household members, disability, length of service, and social status.
Director of the Media Center and former member of the RTCG Council, Goran Đurović, told "Vijesti" that the apartment allocation process indicates the overall situation in the public media service because, he believes, that process was also conducted in a manipulative manner and largely politicized.
Đurović says that the situation was different and fairer in 2011, when the then-current Rules limited the difference in points between candidates with different coefficients to a small amount, so as not to give directors a big advantage over other employees.
"The Regulation on Resolving Housing Needs in RTCG, adopted in November 2024, enabled the Director of Television of Montenegro Milan Knežević and Marko Vešović, who came to work at RTCG on a political basis (as staff of Andrija Mandić and Milan Knežević) after the change of government in 2020, to receive apartments with only three or four years of work engagement at RTCG. Thus, politically suitable officials and editors at RTCG were rewarded with apartments worth 705 euros/m2, far below market value," claims Đurović.
He says that this is unfair to workers who have worked at RTCG for 30 or more years and have not been able to exercise their right to an apartment, even though they have even set aside a self-contribution for years to resolve the housing issue.
"This manipulation, led by the illegal RTCG Director General Boris Raonić, was carried out using the Rules on Resolving Housing Needs in RTCG, which, for example, take the importance of the job as one of the decisive criteria for obtaining points. Employees with the highest coefficient receive the most points, and each coefficient of the job is multiplied by 2, so TVCG Director Milan Knežević, with four years of work engagement in RTCG, has 32,4 points on this basis, and a journalist with a coefficient of 7,35 and 30 years of experience in RTCG, received 14,7 points on this criterion," emphasizes Đurović.
He says that "this situation was different and fairer in, say, 2011, when the then-current Rules made the difference in points between candidates with different coefficients small, so as not to give directors a big advantage over other employees."
"Instead of considering the number of years of service at RTCG as an important criterion for scoring, the Rules allow for a better position for evaluating those who practically joined the public service yesterday, regardless of previous engagement at RTCG. I guess it is logical that people who have invested their entire lives in RTCG have an advantage over people who joined the public service three or four years ago," Đurović assessed.
He believes that the Rulebook is discriminatory and imprecise, so it is possible that, based on Article 21, an employee who lives with his parents or spouse's parents receives 30 points, regardless of the size of the space in which he lives.
"It is possible, for example, for an RTCG employee to live in a 100 square meter apartment that is part of a residential building owned by his parent, and he would certainly receive 30 points, which would give him a great chance of getting an apartment under favorable conditions through the RTCG competition," concludes Đurović.
He says that the role of the RTCG employee union, which did not object to either the poor Rules or the ranking list, is also significant in the entire process.
Earlier this month, the RTCG trade union filed a lawsuit with the Administrative Court against the RTCG Council and the General Director of the Public Broadcasting Service, Boris Raonić. The statement signed by Časlav Vujotić states that they are filing the lawsuit because the Council and Raonić, by publishing a Public Advertisement to resolve the housing needs of RTCG employees, violated the public interest and the rights of long-time professionals.
"The entire documentation on which the Public Advertisement is based, which was never given to the Trade Union organization Public Broadcasting Service Radio and Television of Montenegro for review and comments, has formal and substantive omissions," they said.
The union also raised the issue that the Rulebook, when creating the ranking list, gives many times more points to the current job position than to the length of service at RTCG, which, they assessed, gives the current managers an advantage.
In November 2022, the Director General of RTCG signed a contract worth around 3,4 million euros with the contractor “Roaming Montenegro” doo from Nikšić for the construction of a residential building for employees of the Public Service. The five-story building with an attic, as previously announced by RTCG, contains 24 studios, 42 one-bedroom apartments and 24 two-bedroom apartments in two entrances. The contract with the contractor states that the price per square meter is 649,9 euros.
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