30.12.2009.
Minister's interview to AKTER weekly
EXCELLENT COOPERATION WITH USA
- It is no secret that we have established good cooperation with the USA in the field of defense. I believe that this cooperation should be further enlarged and soon the public will have the opportunity to hear about the effects of our visit to USA, as minister of Defense Dragan Sutanovac states.
You have recently been presented with the award of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce as an acknowledgment of your contribution of the exports of arms weapons and military equipment? Is that not a bit unusual to see such an award presented to the Minister of Defense? Is that your job?
Serbia’s defense industry has been in a very poor condition for years now, factories were in debt, and workers had no work…However, as part of our international activities, we made a priority to promote our defense industry and to open up to new markets. Thanks to our efforts our defense industry became one of the pivotal bearers of our industry as in 2009 alone it made 300 million US worth of exports, and is ending this year with a 500 million US worth of contracts for the next year. In the period to come the factories will be employing new workers in order to meet the deadlines set in the contracts, which is a great step forward not only for the workers and factories but for the whole industry as well.Will this leave MoD with enough funds to buy new equipment?
- The military budget for 2010 is 68 billion RSD and it is not a developing budget as the most part of the budget will be allocated for personal expenditures. hat leaves us with 20 % of the budget for equipment, investments, infrastructure and operational costs which is not enough for serious investments we need. However, we propose to make the most of this budget.
You singled out the opening of JUG military base as the highlight of your activities for this year even though it was supposed to be completed much earlier?
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Opening of JUG military base certainly ranks as one of our greatest achievements. As far as the delay is concerned, we wanted to do a good job regardless of the deadline. The base covers 35 ha, with a capacity to accommodate 1000 soldiers, and our plan is to expand on additional 65 ha where we will make training grounds for our and foreign soldiers. I would also like to single out the Parliament’s decision to send our members to peace missions abroad: to Chad, in addition to our engagement in Congo, Liberia, and Cote d Ivoire. We are currently analyzing our possibilities for sending our troops to Lebanon with the Spanish contingent.
The international military cooperation this year was very intensive. Vice President Biden’s visit was a crucial one and you are the only minister who had talks with him. For the first time in the last 25 years, USA has sent an official invitation to you to visit their minister. How do you explain this?
-We want to benefit from the experience in our cooperation with USA It is no secret that we have established good cooperation with the USA in the field of defense. I believe that this cooperation should be further enlarged and soon the public will have the opportunity to hear about the effects of our visit to USA.
On the other hand our cooperation with Russia is minimal in comparison to the cooperation with USA? Why is this so and does this not affect the military neutrality of Serbia?
- It is my duty to make Serbia a respectable security partner in the region and in the world. When we talk about military cooperation, I also have to mention military exercises, especially the military medical exercise MEDCEUR which had gathered almost 800 participants from 15 countries. Then there was the air show in Batajnica with participants from 14 countries,.
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There has been an announcement that the number of employees in the state administration will be reduced, while MoD will see a rise in the number of employees, which means that you will be employing through the finalization of professionalization?
- We have recently completed the systematization of work posts and the forming of a complete system of defense. WE plan to have 36 000 professional soldiers, 178 of whom will be civil servants. Currently there are 11500 employees, with our plan to reduce this number down to 8600, that is, by some 2900. Some of them will go to SAF and some posts will be canceled.
- The military income-generating institutions are at this moment undergoing rationalization of work, where 450 of employees will be made redundant but will undergo a special social program. Such military institutions as Dedinje, Tara, Morava and Karadjordjevo would lose almost 700 million RSD per year.
At the beginning of this year two budgetary inspections checked the work of the Ministry of Defense, and during the year the state audit inspection checked the ministry too. However, the public was not informed of the results of the inspection?
- It is true that we have had inspections, one of them came upon my request and worked about six months. None of the inspections found anything that would indicate any irregularities.
What of the civil-military cooperation? You seem to have made big progress in this area, since SAf has once again been seen reconstructing roads and building bridges?
- This year we built bridges near Despotovac and in Sjenica and roads in Kursumlija and Sjenica. Furthermore, in cooperation with the Ohio National Guard we managed to reconstruct kindergartens and schools.
REFORM OF THE MILITARY EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
A great leap forward was made in the field of reforming military education-study programs had been accredited in the Military academy and the Military Medical Academy, as this year the first generation of medical students where enrolled in MMA. There is an ever increasing interest for attending military schools, where the Military Academy had 1050 applicants, and 900 candidates applied for the Military Grammar School.
MAIN GOAL-PROFESSIONALIZATION
This year has also been very successful in terms of the number of prospective candidates for professional soldiers, as Sutanovac said, citing the number of 9500 applicants for 2500 posts where 14 % were women. More than 2100 of them were admitted as professional soldiers. The defense system currently has 6200 professional soldiers, where the recruit contingent had been reduced from 5000 down to 3200. By increasing the number of professional soldiers, th3e number of recruits will decrease.
SOLVING HOUSING ISSUES
we managed to solve this vital issue for some 600 MoD employees by assigning them flats or approving their loans. We even launched a pilot project which enables interest-free housing loans for 400 military pensioners.
