Asocijacija nezavisnih elektronskih medija
Association of Independent Electronic Media
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"Better Serbia" month IX, April 2008
Total of 23 features have been prepared for the ninth month of the "Better Serbia" broadcasting, for the period from April 1 till April 30, 2008, one for each working day during this period.
The main topics of these features are all related to the following subject matter: Municipal Government and Public Utility Companies as Citizens' Service.
Features broadcasting plan, topics of the features and their authors:
1. Botoš – Biological Diversity Preservation, author of the feature: Milan Čekrdžin
The village of Botoš in Banat region is the first place in Serbia that signed the international declaration on biological diversity preservation, promising to adapt all the activities of its inhabitants to the needs of its nature and environment. This will not be a place for factories with technologies that pollute environment, nor for any other polluter. Zoran Ilijašev, President of the local municipal district of Botoš, says that their primary aim is to preserve the Tamiš River, a very clean river with great potential for recreation and tourism.
2. Kragujevac – Electronic Base of Birth Registries, author of the feature: Gorica Gligorijević
The Town of Kragujevac has completed its electronic base of birth registries, and is ready to see the introduction of electronic government on the level of the Republic of Serbia. E-Government is expected to facilitate administrative procedures and enable citizens to get a document they need in any city or town in Serbia. Citizens of Kragujevac can already get their copies of birth certificates in one minute only, and registrars have found this system easier to work with, according to one of the officials in this Town, Goran Aleksić.
3. Belgrade – "Protection for Customers", author of the feature: Ana Korelec
Salesmen in Serbia avoid considering their customers' complaints about the quality of their goods, and customers tend to give up complaining too easily. The "Protected Customers" Project that was initiated in the Belgrade Municipality of Palilula is there to assist citizens in realizing the rights they are entitled to in an easier way, their right to compensation for low quality goods. Inhabitants of Palilula can declare substandard and broken goods in all the smaller local level units of their municipality, and they will be represented free of charge by the Republic Union of Customers.
4. Čačak – "Million Trees" Campaign, author of the feature: Zorica Kreculj
Immediately after the towns of Zrenjanin and Kikinda, the town of Čačak was included in the "Million Trees for Serbia" Campaign. More than ten thousand trees will be planted in the urban and rural areas of Serbia. Vladan Petković, President of the Paraplegic Association of the Morava River District that has supported this Campaign, reminded us that Morava River banks used to be full of greenery some thirty years ago, while they are not filled with waste and garbage.
5. Belgrade – Local Municipal District of Zeleni venac, author of the feature: Ana Korelec
Zorica Štulović is not a fitness instructor, but the secretary of the Local Municipal District of "Zeleni venac" in Belgrade, but she teaches her fitness classes four times a week in the local community centre adapted to accommodate free of charge recreational classes for the inhabitants of that neighbourhood. She came to this idea after careful listening to their needs and wishes. “We used to have more communal meetings, people playing chess and such kind of stuff here, but the idea now is to attract more and more of the young people“ Zorica said.
6. Pirot – Creating Climate for Investments, author of the feature: Aleksandra Stanković
A small number of investments and a large number of the unemployed people are the main problems that the inhabitants of the Municipality of Pirot are facing every day. Local government wishes to create better environment for investments: to begin with, they will build up an industrial park within the Duty Free Zone of the Town of Pirot. Director of the Duty Free Zone, Dragan Kostić, says that direct international investors are not willing to invest in Serbia, and especially not in areas such as Pirot region. This is exactly why he expects aid and assistance from the Office for Regional Economic Development, the establishing of which has been financed by the EAR.
7. Majdanpek – Citizens to Monitor the Local Municipal Budget, author of the feature: Dejan Zlatić
Resource Centre in Majdanpek is a part of the coalition of non-governmental organizations established in ten municipalities of Serbia to implement the Project of Citizens' Monitoring of their local municipal governments' budgets. The aim is to include citizens in the process of budget creation and allocation, according to Boris Ilijevski, a coordinator of this Project for the town of Majdanpek.
"Local governments and public companies need persuasion and clear understanding of why they must abide by the law, and it is only then that we can free our citizens from any fears of taking an active part in their local government work," Ilijevski said.
8. Belgrade – Home Delivery of Personal Documents, author of the feature: Ana Korelec
Belgrade Municipality of Zvezdara has again taken care so that all the children who were to be enrolled in the first grade of primary school could get their copies of birth certificates free of any charge to their home addresses. Four years in a row now birth certificates are sent to the home addresses of the future high school students and university students to be, and the President of the Municipality of Zvezdara, Milan Popović, says that it is a part of a wider modernization project of municipal government, which had been designed based on the citizens' complaints.
9. Kruševac – Animal Hygiene, author of the feature: Nenad Božović
Public Communal Company "Kruševac" installed special garbage bins with bags for pets' excrement in two largest parks in u the town of Kruševac, in Bagdala and in Pioneers' Park last summer. The garbage bins bear the following message: "I want things to change, I want it clean", and the same message is the main slogan of this campaign. Citizens have noticed and appraised this innovation, and the Director of the Public Communal Company "Kruševac", Olgica Nestorović says that they want to raise citizens' awareness on these issues and introduce European standards in this area.
10. Belgrade – Refurbishing of Apartment Buildings in Voždovac, author of the feature: Ana Korelec
Apartment owners in the five story apartment building in 73 Ustanička Street in the Belgrade Municipality of Voždovac, were among the first citizens of Belgrade to sign a contract with the representatives of their Municipal Government on co-financing of the refurbishment of their apartment building. In the first phase of the "Our Entrance Hall, Our Anteroom" ("Naš ulaz, naše predsoblje") Project, 22 apartment buildings will be refurbished. The tenants and apartment owners accepted to pay for 30 percents of the expenses according to this contract, and the rest of the work will be paid from the municipal budget.
11. Belgrade – Electronic Government, author of the feature: Ana Korelec
Belgrade Municipalities issue more than 800 thousand copies of birth and citizenship certificates annually. Most of those municipalities have already simplified the procedure for documents' issuing, but the first improvements will become tangible for the citizens with the introduction of E-Government on the City level, according to Vesna Matejić from the IT and Statistics Institute, the experts of which are in charge of software design for this Project.
12. Valjevo – Citizens Guidebook, author of the feature: Slađana Stevanović
The Municipality of Lajkovac has printed a Citizens' Guidebook, a practical guide to help citizens find their way and exercise their rights in their town's Municipality Building. President of the Municipality of Lajkovac, Vladan Čolović, said that the premises had also been refurbished to fit the European standards for working with and providing services for citizens. They do not have to stand waiting in front of small windows, and can now sit down comfortably to get what they came for, a document, advice or legal assistance.
13. Lazarevac – Office for Farmers' Issues, author of the feature: Ana Korelec
Radivoje Đurić lives in the village of Rudovci in the Municipality of Lazarevac. He owns a fruit and herbs drying facility and wishes to widen the range of his products, but is not sure about all the available sources of finances. Radivoje found his answers after a visit by the Coordinator of Office for Farmers of the Municipality of Lazarevac, Goran Čakardić. Čakardić pays regular visits to villages, receives farmers in his office, and once a week meet with them to discuss things in the local market.
14. Pećinci - Waste Water Purification, author of the feature: Milan Čekrdžin
The small village of Pećinci in the region of Srem is one of the rare settlements in Serbia with sewerage network with modern system for waste water purification. President of their Municipality, Nikola Pavković, says that they needed a new sewer system because frequent spills of waste water threatened to jeopardize health of the local people. "Somehow it feels natural in the 21st century to invest more to protect both the people and the river" Pavković said.
15. Novi Beograd – Office for the Young, author of the feature: Ana Korelec
Office for the Young People in the Belgrade Municipality of Novi Beograd was set up in cooperation with the local non-governmental organizations, and for two years now they provide different, free of charge, training courses for the young people helping them at the same time to creatively use their spare time.
"Our aim is to get the young people take an active part in the process of solving of their own problems and in the decision making process of their local community," said the representative of this Office, Nemanja Ranković.
16. Vranje – "Guillotine" for Unnecessary Administration, author of the feature: Zoran Radulović
The Municipality of Vranje and an international organization IFC, which is a part of the World Bank, are implementing a joint project symbolically called "Guillotine", with the aim to simplify administrative procedures on the local community level.
200 operational forms have already been put on the municipal web site, for the citizens to propose things and ways to change. At the moment, it is necessary to enclose more than ten different documents to apply for children welfare subsidy.
17. Belgrade – Illegal Garbage Dumps Removal, author of the feature: Ana Korelec
Initiated by citizens, the municipality of Novi Beograd launched a spring campaign to clean up and remove five large illegal garbage dumps near housing projects. Although this job is not in the immediate jurisdiction of the municipal government, they paid the City Garbage Collecting Company to take away some 700 cubic meters of garbage.
"These illegal garbage dumps were created over years on the land owned by the City of Belgrade government, and not by the municipality, and also in the neglected privately owned land," Head of the Municipal Department for Environmental Protection, Mladen Ranković.
18. Čačak – Office for Rural Development, author of the feature: Zorica Kreculj
Over the past 20 years the rural areas of the Municipality of Čačak saw a significant reduction of the number of inhabitants – one third of them have left, and the same trend is still visible. In the beginning of this year, an Office for Rural Development was set up in Čačak to provide assistance to farmers. According to Mirjana Milošević, Assistant to the Minister of Agriculture, their plan is to engage the smallest, and often the poorest families in the smaller fields of activities, such as fruit picking.
19. Belgrade – Free of Charge Small Repairs in the Municipality of Vračar, author of the feature: Ana Korelec
Dušanka Šobot and her husband live in Belgrade as pensioners. They live in the Municipality of Vračar. Their Municipality has recently started providing free of charge smaller plumbing repairs and they called them in.
Repairmen from the Public Utility Company "Beogradski vodovod i kanalizacija" ("Belgrade Water Supply and Sewerage") came quickly, and Dušanka said that it saved them a lot of money, since every time a repairman came in they charged one thousand dinars. The Municipality of Vračar wishes to help their citizens, and to cut down on unnecessary spending of drinking water at the same time.
20. Majdanpek – Town Park Grooming, author of the feature: Dejan Zlatić
After more than two decades, Town Park in Majdanpek is finally in a perfect condition. Paths were paved last year, and new benches and lamps have been installed this year.
Nebojša Kapric, President of the Executive Board of the Municipal Local Community "Majdanpek", says that nothing has been renewed over the past 20 to 30 years, and not only in this Park, but in the Town as a whole, in spite of the fact that they plan to live on tourism.
21. Inđija – Reception Room in the Municipality of Inđija, author of the feature: Milan Čekrdžin