Leasing municipal land to investors at unrealistically favourable conditions, failing to charge utility fees in the full amount and performing works without calling a tender previously are some of the reasons for yesterday’s arrest of the former president of the Municipality of Berane Vuka Golubovic, Dnevne Novine newspaper writes.
In addition to Vuka Golubovic, the Special State Prosecutor’s Office’s order the police to arrest his brother Milan Golubovic, former director of the Berane Construction Agency, as well as the former heads of Berane cadastre Darko Malisic and Momcilo Tajicic and Vuceta Malisic, owner of a land survey company.
Prosecutors charge them with abuse of office and costing municipal budget hundreds of thousands of euros.
After the hearing at the Special Prosecutor’s Office, they have been remanded in custody for 72 hours.
The special prosecutor is to decide whether to issue an order on conducting the investigation within the legal deadline.
Attorney of Golubovic brothers Atif Adrovic told DN that his clients had answered prosecutor’s questions without declaring on the guilt and that they had not been presented any documents during the hearing.
“Criminal charges are based on written evidence, but I have not seen them so far. They mostly refer to the conclusion of contracts among the municipality, the Agency for Investment and Development and other entities carrying out works on the territory of Berane,” said Adrovic.
Several criminal complaints have been filed against the former president of the Municipality of Berane in the last three years. Most of them have been filed by the Zdravo Berane (Healthy Berane), the current ruling coalition in the city.
According to the information obtained by DN, the prosecutor’s office launched the investigation based on two complaints – one filed by the ruling coalition and another filed by NGO MANS.
According to the charges, brothers Golubovic allegedly leased municipal land to investors under favourable conditions. The investors constructed buildings on the land and utility fees were not charged, although they were much lower than legally prescribed.
Esko Gruda also pressed criminal charges against Golubovic due to the sale of municipal land to private companies for the construction of a business-housing facility. Gruda’s business premises were removed from that area due to the construction. Namely, at the beginning of 2012, the Municipality of Berane headed by Golubovic sold the disputed land, treating it as a third class meadow, for €105,000 to private entrepreneurs, although it is construction land in the city centre.
Numerous charges against the former municipality president also include spending public assets for local roads reparation on the eve of local elections in 2014, without calling tenders for the works worth €300,000.
The prosecutors also investigate squandering EU conditional grants. A €124,000 grant for the completion of works at the fire station was spent for other purposes.
The same thing happened with €48,000 which was supposed to represent municipality’s share for building a regional business centre, as well as €120,000 from the Pension Fund intended for solving housing issues and the assets for Polica and Rzanica water supply systems.
