21.04.2010.

105 new interest-free housing loans for military pensioners

In the second round of the signing of interest-free housing credit contracts with the Fund for social insurance of the military insured, 105 more military pensioners have signed contracts to obtain 20,000 euros each that will help them solve their housing problems, in the House of Serbian Armed Forces, today.

Ministry of Defence allowed this form of support to military pensioners under the Rules on the use, conditions and methods to use the funds for the improvement of the material position of military pensioners without housing.

Defence Minister Dragan Šutanovac handed the first signed contract to the retired Lieutenant Colonel Zdenko Škari?, who has been waiting for housing for 24 years and thanks to these means will manage to buy a one-room apartment in Belgrade for his family – his wife and a son.

Minister Šutanovac emphasized that even 20,000 members of the Ministry of Defence have not finally resolved the issue of housing, 2,828 of which are military pensioners. “The payments for the increased costs of housing for them amounted to 10 million euros a year, and therefore we had to initiate finding reform solutions by which professional military personnel are offered subsidized loans, and military pensioners single grants in the amount of 20,000 euros,” Šutanovac said pointing out that in the defence system over the last three years, 2100 housing issues have been settled, 655 of which for military pensioners.

- Assuming the function of a Minister of Defence I was faced with the problem of housing for both the active officers and NCOs, and the retired officers and NCOs, especially those who moved to live in Serbia in nineties upon the order. In order to reform this segment we have created the Department for Tradition, Standard and Veterans within the Human Resources Sector of the Ministry of Defence and this Department is to deal with the problems of military pensioners, Minister Šutanovac said adding that during the previous three years he talked with representatives of all associations of military pensioners where they found good results in solving housing problems.

Allocating about 500 interest-free housing loans to military pensioners will save about 60 million dinars a year to be directed to further granting of this type of loan, the Minister of Defence emphasized.

- It is our wish to make a fund from the redemption of housing units to be a fund for further building, i.e. allocations of credit. Thus we will try to make a self-sustaining fund with minimal investment from the budget that will support future housing for the members of the Ministry of Defence and military pensioners, Minister Šutanovac pointed out.

So far, according to Lieutenant Colonel Milojko Milovanovi?, director of the Fund for social insurance of the military insured, 440 beneficiaries of military pensions applied for interest-free housing loans, and 208 concluded contracts. Based on that fact 413.6 million dinars were paid for solving housing issues of military pensioners in 94 towns in Serbia.