While the city, the veterans’ organization and the company cooperate well, there is still no memorial complex

How the authorities in the City of Istočno Sarajevo treat the fallen Serb civilians is best shown by the fact that the deadline for the completion of the memorial complex was missed, and the City, in order to eliminate the competition, transferred the money to the Municipal Veterans’ Organization, which chose a company close to the authorities as the contractor. The works are supervised by the brother of the president of the veterans’ organization. Nobody cares about whether the construction of the memorial complex will destroy the park.

The Government of Republika Srpska approved 800.000 marks for the construction of a memorial complex dedicated to Serb civilians who lost their lives in the 20th century by the decision on amendments to the decision on priority projects from the Public Investment Program of October last year. 

“The estimated value of the project is BAM 2.100.000 whereof the Government of Republika Srpska has provided BAM 1.600.000 – BAM 800.000 in this and the next year respectively, and the City of Istočno Sarajevo and the municipality of Istočno Sarajevo will provide BAM 500.000 in total,” the city mayor of the City of Istočno Sarajevo, Ljubiša Ćosić, at the end of 2022 when the implementation of this project should have begun. The price of works has in the meantime increased by additional BAM 100.000 and due to the delays in project implementation the Government did not allocate the promised funds this year, which did not prevent the authorities from ostensibly starting the works, as the mayor says “without any fanfare” although the local media outlets have been competing to publish the repeatedly announced project.

Finally, the works have started just in time for the closing of construction season.

Park “Sunce” in Istočno Novo Sarajevo, where the construction is planned, has been excavated and is muddy, and the playground has been demolished. A total of BAM 500.000 out of BAM 800.000 of the RS Government has been planned for the works, and the remaining money has been spent on design, and on a monument to White Angel and an embossed rendering of three churches. It is not clear how much money was spent on this since the city mayor has originally mentioned BAM 200-250.000, but later on the figure went up to BAM 300.000.

However, that is not the only controversy. No tender was announced for the execution of works. The city mayor first decided to transfer BAM 350.000 to the account of the Municipal Veterans’ Organization Istočno Novo Sarajevo, and he will transfer additional BAM 150.000 by the end of December. When we have asked him if this was the way to circumvent the tender procedures and to decrease transparency in spending of public funds, since the veterans’ organization has selected the company to which the money will be paid, the city mayor Ćosić  said that the goal was to have more people participating in the project implementation.  

Spin info: “Why didn’t the City announce a tender”?

Ljubiša Ćosić: “The tender procedures are currently so complicated that, in the case of this project, if we had announced a tender, if we hadn’t made a partnership, it would have taken a long time, we wouldn’t even have started now”. 

Although everything has been lasting more than a year already.

Tender is not needed, “UNIOTEC” DOO is a trustworthy company  

The veterans’ organization of the municipality of Istočno Novo Sarajevo chose the company “UNIOTEC” doo based in this municipality as the contractor. Over the past few years this company has suddenly started getting jobs, both from the municipality of Istočno Novo Sarajevo and from the city of Istočno Sarajevo, which is managed by the cadres of the ruling SNSD. Even though it was founded in 2019, with one average worker, this did not prevent them from already recording millions in revenue in 2022, as much as BAM 2.908.213.

They started with the help of the municipality of Istočno Novo Sarajevo. They got the first job of building a sports field in Tvrdimići with another company, worth BAM 54.000, which is symptomatic considering that the company “Urbanis” doo, which is owned by the councilor of this municipality, Miljana Sladoja, has also started doing business in the same way, through municipal tenders. Today, although with much more modest revenue than “UNIOTEC”, both are part of a consortium of companies that bought the most attractive land in this municipality, after the only production factory in the city, MOFAS, was shut down.

The main office of the company “UNIOTEC” is in Hilandarska street. We visited the mentioned location, but there are no business premises anywhere, so it is possible that the main office of a construction company that has millions of revenue and is entrusted by the municipality to do works such as construction of a kindergarten, is in an apartment.

The owner of the company is Slobodan Sladoje. By the way, this company receives a large number of jobs from public institutions and companies from the territory of the municipality of Kalinovik, where this family is from, and it is also a curiosity that the last name of the mayor of this small, underdeveloped municipality with barely 2.000 inhabitants is also Sladoje. 

“A fight for veterans” Tuševljak: Why do you have to monitor the construction?

When they started construction in the park that will be turned into a memorial complex, a board with basic information was officially installed. Although it was demolished after a few days, it is interesting that there is no date for the completion of the works, the mayor bids that it will be Vidovdan, that is, June 28 of the 2024 election year.

The President of the Municipal Veterans’ Organization, Dragiša Tuševljak, confirmed that the City has transferred funds to the veterans’ organization, in advance. 

“Work has just started, some materials have been acquired, some earthworks have been done, but we still have not received any information about what was done and how much it cost”, said Tuševljak for SPIN Info.

We asked him to send us the Decision based on which the funds were transferred in order to monitor the construction, and we were asked why do we need the decision. 

SPIN Info: “It is money of us all”.

Dragiša Tuševljak: “And we are really going to misuse it?”

Tuševljak did not specify whether they contacted other construction companies when choosing a contractor, and when asked why the work was given to a recently established company and what their references were, he answered: “To revive the company.”

So, private companies are being “revived” with public money in Istočno Sarajevo.

And while the president of the Veterans’ Organization confusedly declares that the supervisory body was chosen by the City Assembly, even though it is not within its jurisdiction, Mayor Ćosić has during our conversation remembered who supervises the works. 

“The veterans’ organization has its own supervisor, I don’t know exactly who he is, I think I know, the man’s name is Slaviša Tuševljak, he is a supervisor, he used to work in the Municipality of Istočno Novo Sarajevo, he has all the necessary licenses, so everything is okay.”

And the required licenses are that the supervisory authority, that is, Slaviša Tuševljak, is the brother of the president of the Veterans’ Organization, Dragiša Tuševljak.

Will the park be further demolished?

No one cares about preserving the park anymore. Based on the existing project, it is evident that, in addition to concreting some parts of the green areas, a portion of the trees will also be cut.

“There are several trees (three to four) where future amphitheater is to come, and they will probably be cut down if no other technical solution can be found. If this happens, new trees will be planted”, confirmed the city mayor for SPIN info a few months ago, although we got the same promise three years ago, that the steps in the park would not be demolished, nor would trees be cut down due to the construction of residential and commercial buildings, which did not happen.

Citizens’ Association “Probudi se” from Istočno Sarajevo was the only one to raise the question concerning the location of the future memorial complex.

“If we are constructing a memorial, but destroying a park, what is the point?! Does it mean that we cannot have both the part and the memorial?! At least that is easy in a city that is developing and where there is space for both! I don’t know if there was a public hearing about the memorial. If there was, what were the objections made? When we have seen the project design for the first time, we wondered if the right location was selected. Did the person responsible for the design ever visit the location, and if he did or did not, why do the competent authorities believe that is good enough to destroy a part in order to build a memorial?”

The association appealed to the authorities to reconsider the location of the memorial and asked the authorities not to make the argument: “Who can oppose the construction of such a memorial”, because that would be a fallacy.

It remains unclear when and from which source over a million marks will be provided for the continuation of construction, why are certain companies in the City privileged, who decided to destroy the park and why the authorities think that they do not have to account to anyone.