07.06.2011.

Minister Sutanovac visited Vozdovac building site

Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac, accompanied by Dragan Grujic, the Director of Building Directorate of Serbia, Stevan Nikcevic, General Director of Yugoimport SDPR and Ilija Pilipovic, Assistant Minister for Material Resources, has visited today the building site on the grounds of the former Stepa Stepanovi? barracks in Voždovac.

Expressing satisfaction that the Ministry of Defence participates in the project that is one of the largest construction projects in this part of Europe, Minister Sutanovac said that the project would provide around 5 000 flats, and also two schools, two kindergartens and business centres.

- In this area, about nine hundred flats are being built to become the property of the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces, and also about two hundred flats to be obtained in the exchange from the Building Directorate of Serbia, which has these flats built throughout Serbia. This means that the capacities we have built here we also use for the part of the Armed Forces which is not located in Belgrade, but also in other areas of Serbia, Minister Sutanovac said.

The Minister said that the project is progressing rapidly respecting the deadlines, hoping that presenting the decisions will begin early next year, and moving in of the first tenants will start in March and April. – About two hundred flats that we are to receive from the Building Directorate of Serbia are already available, and I expect that they get their new owners, across Serbia early in July, Minister Sutanovac said.

Ministry of Defence used to exchange its assets for a certain number of square meters of gross built area earlier, and the surface area or the percentage of squares ranged between 5 and 12 percent. Ministry of Defence here received 21 percent of the constructed area, which is really a record and it is a great success for the Ministry of Defence – Sutanovac said.

Sutanovac and his associates visited the facility 4E, built by the contractor PMC Engineering, a daughter company of Yugoimport SDPR. The facility covers about eighteen thousand square meters of housing space for one hundred and sixty-five flats.

Director of the Building Directorate of Serbia, Dragan Grujic, pointed out that the terminal board was finished on all lamellas, that inside the building the work on installations has started, and raf ters were set on top of the building.

"It is now clear that this building will be completed well ahead of the deadline, which was scheduled in May next year and it is planned that the end of works on the building is in February or March next year. We are satisfied not only with the dynamics but also with the quality of construction, Grujic said, and on this occasion he presented the director of" PMC engineering with a symbolic gift, in gratitude for the good cooperation – a yellow shirt, and the workers in the building with white shirts that are to be put on the raf ters of the completed building.

Grujic added that all the buildings in the site will be finished by the end of the next year. "About 14 thousand citizens applied for the purchase of the flats, and the Building Directorate has invited about five thousand people. Seven hundred of them have already signed the contracts and paid the deposit, while another thousand people decided to buy the flats in the second and third phase of construction.

ANSWERS TO REPORTERS' QUESTIONS

Asked by reporters about the status of former owners of the land on which construction was started, Minister Sutanovac said that this problem has nothing to do with the Ministry of Defence, and that the ministry has no information that there is a property-rights issue, and if it turns out that such a problem exists it will be resolved in accordance with the Law on Restitution.

- Anywhere where a property-rights problem exists, the Ministry of Defence does not apply disposal in the Master Plan, and it is precisely for that reason that we are building on this site – the Minister emphasized.

Answering reporters' questions about the strike in the Zastava Arms factory, Minister Sutanovac said that the problems that exist in this factory were inherited from the previous years.

- I will be happy to talk with them, and it is already tomorrow that the meeting with the metal industry unions has been scheduled. We wish to find a solution that would assume that those who do have jobs and work remain on work, and that the factory, in case of sometimes a greater volume of work, offers part-time employment also those who do not work in the factory. This is the only way they can survive. There is not much logic in possibility that the Ministry of Defence, or the state, provide the market because it is impossible for the state to provide the market in time in which it does not exist – Sutanovac said, recalling that at this point the state is the market, and that the debt of Zastava Arms in goods is about three hundred and thirty million dinars, and that they must first finish the paid order.

Asked by the reporters, regarding the allegations in media, about the investigation of persons who were guarding General Ratko Mladic in the military facilities and about his retirement, Minister Sutanovac pointed out that the bodies of ministry are involved in the action team and that this team is to give all information about that, as well as that all the speculations about the treatment of Mladic at MMA are absolutely untrue.