Citizens of the Bar settlement of Tuđemili are demanding that the Government and the Ministry of Transport fix the regional road through Sutorman as soon as possible, which is in drastically poor condition because ambulances and fire departments cannot reach the locals living in that part of the city.
Therefore, they gathered at a meeting to decide on further action and submit a request to the authorities. Around 50 locals expressed their dissatisfaction with the fact that the road is neglected, full of potholes, collapsed and plagued by frequent landslides.
Emir Peričić, a resident of that part of Bar and a member of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) in the local assembly, told "Vijesti" that there are two landslides on the road to Sutorman that make their lives extremely difficult.
"On this day, neither the ambulance nor the fire truck can reach Tuđemil. The school bus leaves the children a kilometer and a half before the village, because it cannot pass," said Peričić.
Peričić pointed out that the locals have two requests to the authorities: that the road be immediately repaired and brought within the bounds of decency, so that they can reach their homes without difficulty, and that funds for the reconstruction of the entire road be included in the state budget for next year.
The Municipality of Bar has paid for the main project and it has been revised, so there are no more obstacles to starting the implementation of that project, Peričić said, explaining that the reconstruction of the road was part of the Government's capital budget for 2025, but it was removed from this year's, and they do not know why.
"This is the only alternative route from Bar and Ulcinj to Podgorica, besides the one through the Sozina tunnel. If any problem occurs in the Green Belt (the part between the center of Bar and the tunnel), Podgorica can only be reached from these two municipalities by plane or via Sutorman," Peričić emphasized.
That road has been a regional road since 2019, he pointed out, and assessed that it would be time to start its reconstruction. According to him, they are not asking for it to be completed in one year, but they would be satisfied if it were realized in the next six years, claiming that the Government can allocate 10 million annually for that purpose.
The state budget for this year has allocated 200 thousand euros for the reconstruction of the regional road R-18 Bar-Sutorman-Virpazar.
Although the Traffic Administration unofficially claims that the Municipality of Bar has not submitted the project to that department and that implementation can begin if it does so later, "Vijesti" has access to the approval for the main project that the administration submitted to the municipal Secretariat for Property and Investments on December 27, 2023.
That document states that it has been determined that the main project is in accordance with the issued traffic and technical conditions of the Traffic Administration as well as with applicable regulations and standards.
The Municipality of Bar signed a contract for the development of a preliminary and main design for the reconstruction of the regional road route R-18 Virpazar-Sutorman-Bar in March 2022. The total value of the contract is 225.398 euros, and the contractor for this work is the company "Civil Engineer".
As the Municipality said at the time, they have thus taken the first step in creating the prerequisites to soon begin the reconstruction of this road route, approximately 34 kilometers long, which has the status of a regional road under the jurisdiction of the state.
By a 2019 government decision, and at the initiative of the Bar administration, this road route was re-categorized from local to regional, thus becoming an alternative route for the Adriatic Highway, especially in the summer months, when the load on coastal roads is greatest.
"In this way, a new perspective has been created for this part of the municipality, especially for the development of the rich natural and agricultural resources and tourist potential of the hinterland of Sutorman and Crmnica, which will contribute to the development of the villages of this region and the development of ethno, rural and mountain tourism, as well as lakeside tourism, in addition to the main offer on the sea coast," said the municipality it manages at the time. Dušan Raičević (DPS).
Understanding the importance of this direction, the Municipality of Bar has repeatedly asked the Government to begin its development, and at the end of 2021, the Municipality designated this project as one of the priority development projects that should receive support from the state capital budget.
"As the Municipality implements most of the capital projects and investments in the territory of Bar from its own funds, in this way, by allocating significant funds for the first step towards this reconstruction, we want to show the importance of this road route for Bar and encourage the authorities to speed up their procedures and support this project," concluded the local administration.
In the budget of the Municipality of Bar for this year, the road route through Sutorman is mentioned as one of the projects financed by the state.
A source from the Ministry of Transport claims that in that department, which until recently was headed by Maja Vukićević (Democratic People's Party), there was an initiative to completely remove that road from the list of projects of that ministry and to deprive it of its regional status, because it passes through only one municipality - it starts in Stari Bar and ends in Virpazar.
The interlocutor also explains that 200 thousand from the state budget remained at the insistence of the former minister, otherwise Baranka, and that they can be drawn for the needs of rehabilitation. He also stated that the ministry never received the project from the Municipality of Bar, so there was no basis to include funds in the budget for that project that, by all accounts, will not be used this year.
In municipal documents, this project is estimated at a value of around 64 million euros with expropriation. The local government claims that they took on an obligation they did not have to, namely the preparation of documentation, because they wanted to contribute to accelerating the implementation of this long-awaited project.
"The Municipality of Bar has nominated the project in question to the Government, which involves the reconstruction of 28 kilometers of a 6,6-meter-wide road. According to the submitted documentation based on the revised main project, the total estimated value is around 62 million euros, while an additional two million euros need to be provided for the needs of expropriation, for which a study has been prepared and the verification procedure is underway," it says in the Decision on the Local Government Budget for 2025.
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