Wasting City Resources

Only time and the court’s ruling in the case of construction inspector Zoran Jovanovic will show how well-protected are those in Serbia who dare point out irregularities and inefficiency in the spending of taxpayers’ money.

It has been three years since the emergence of a scandal which severely shook Novi Sad’s previous, Radical Party government and resulted in Jovanovic losing his job two years ago. Today, Jovanovic is still fighting a court battle to return to work and receive at least some satisfaction for all he has suffered, and adamantly stands by his claims that he performed his duties honestly and according to the law.

In the past few years Jovanovic was publicly supported by representatives of parties which were opposition at the time, and have now come to power. Those who had eloquently claimed that Jovanovic’s case was a perfect example of how dysfunctional the city’s administration was, however, are now mostly mum, calling for more time and awaiting the court’s verdict.

According to Jovanovic, the reason he was subject to disciplinary proceedings which eventually left him without a job was his refusal to, as the construction inspector in charge, sign false documentation financially damaging to the city. The files in question pertained to the wrecking of three buildings belonging to the company Kelvin Oil. On the site, however, Jovanovic determined that the demolition of the second and third building had begun without a demolition warrant.

Apparently, Kelvin Oil, which was obliged to hire a wrecking company for the first of the buildings in question, made a deal to tear down the other two buildings of its own accord, yet submitted documentation which claimed that all three jobs were ordered by the City Construction Inspectorate. When the case came to Jovanovic, he refused to sign the papers, as they allowed the wreckers to collect payment for all three demolitions jobs from the city treasury.

Normally, the city pays for the demolition of any illegally constructed building and then forwards the bill to the building’s owner. However, after Kelvin Oil failed to pay up by the prescribed Dec. 20, 2005 deadline, Jovanovic sent the case to the City Attorney’s Office and asked that the company be taken to court. On June 22, 2007, however, the City Inspection Directorate requested that the Attorney’s Office halt any collection from Kelvin Oil. The order supposedly came at the insistence of Danica Vignjevic, the City Council’s member in charge of communal affairs.

A Signature for Illegal Payment

Jovanovic claims that his clash with the heads of the Inspection Directorate began when he refused to authorize the payment of six million dinars to the public communal company Stan. According to Jovanovic, this company removed only one, and not three buildings belonging to Kelvin Oil. Yet despite his ruling and the fact that he, as construction inspector in charge of the case, was legally guaranteed independence in his work, on Oct. 7, 2005 Inspection Directorate chief Biljana Grbovic gave a green light for the payments. Jovanovic says that the paperwork on all costs was not even finished at the time – it was on Dec. 20 when chief construction inspector Milka Tanasic finalized the bills.

Jovanovic was convinced that part of the costs claimed were unfounded, but also believed that the remainder need be audited as certain work seemed to have been billed twice. However, when he requested written orders for further action from his supervisor and from the chief construction inspector, Milka Tanasic, he received none. What’s more, after returning from sick leave Jovanovic found out that he had been removed from all the cases he had been working on and that, in the meantime, chief inspector Tanasic had closed the Kelvin Oil case as well.

“By doing so, [Tanasic] authorized a payment that had already been issued by Inspection Directorate chief Biljana Grbovic, but also contradicted herself. Mrs. Tanasic happened to be with me when I wrote the report on the third building. She confirmed with her own signature that the demolition was in progress [without a warrant] and that it was being performed by the company NS Graditelj. In the paperwork she filed, however, [Tanasic] wrote that the demolition was performed by the public communal company Stan, on orders [from the Construction Inspection],” Jovanovic said.

After returning from sick leave in December 2005, Jovanovic wrote up a report entitled “Notification of Possible Abuse of Office and Financial Damage to the City in the Kelvin Oil Illegal Buildings Demolition Cases,” and forwarded it to Danica Vignjevic, the City Council’s member for communal affairs. The following day, chief construction inspector Milka Tanasic composed an official note which was the basis of later disciplinary proceedings against Jovanovic, and led to his removal from office.

No One Safeguards the City Budget

Zoran Jovanovic still stands by every claim he made at the time – and reiterated in later criminal complaints which were all dismissed. “I repeat that the city should not have paid a dime for the demolition of the second and third Kelvin Oil buildings, which were removed from where the Kisacki Road gas station now stands,” Jovanovic says.

Attorney Dragan Miljenovic, who is representing Jovanovic in the lawsuit before the Novi Sad Municipal Court, tells Argus that it was obvious from how the Municipal Public Prosecutor and police were acting that Jovanovic’s criminal complaint would be refused. “The criminal complaint was dismissed without the possibility of an appeal. In effect, everyone who was suspected of committing a crime was absolved. I don’t think that anyone even tried to closely inspect the case because all the suspects held positions with the city government,” Miljenovic claims, adding that the entire proceedings could be revised if the political will and an interest in legality existed.

The program director of the non-government organization Transparency Serbia, Nemanja Nenadic, believes that in the Jovanovic case it is impossible to prove a regular case of corruption through bribery, but says that there are other elements in play which are quite disconcerting. “There are grounds to believe that the regulations on the demolition of illegally constructed buildings were not abided by, and there are serious indications that later in the process certain city officials damaged the city by halting collection for forced demolitions. The one person who fared worse than the city budget in the whole story is inspector Jovanovic, who lost his job, even though from what we could see he acted conscientiously and pointed out errors in procedure,” Nenadic says.

According to Nenadic, this begs the question of how well protected are those in Serbia who dare point out irregularities within the administration, as no state desiring to successfully combat corruption can allow for people who publicly speak up on such errors to be subject to abuse or the loss of job.

Attorney Miljenovic stresses the fact that disciplinary proceedings against Zoran Jovanovic were launched while he was indicating errors in procedure, i.e. that the person attempting to safeguard the city’s budget ended up on the wrong side of his immediate superiors. Instead of moving to clarify the irregularities Jovanovic pointed to, Miljenovic says, his superiors began a campaign against Jovanovic himself – an undertaking spearheaded by Biljana Grbovic, the head of the Inspection Directorate.

Miljenovic believes that the funds for the demolitions were deposited in the account of the public communal company Stan before certain paperwork was issued. “Is Zoran Jovanovic at fault for not wanting to authorize the payment documentation? The payment was made on Oct. 18, while he is being accused for [not signing the papers] in November! So Biljana Grbovic orders the payment on Oct. 7, Milka Tanasic retroactively completes the bills on Dec. 20, and the request for disciplinary proceedings [against Jovanovic] is submitted three days later, on Dec. 23, 2005. In my opinion, that’s a clear case of vengeance,” Miljenovic says.

Silence as Approval

The recent elections brought Novi Sad a new city government, but no changes to inspector Jovanovic’s life or employment status. Neither the newly-elected City Council member for communal affairs, Gordana Pusic, nor the relevant authorities from the city’s Communal Affairs Directorate, are willing to comment on the case of the fired construction inspector.

“As the court proceedings are still in progress, the city cannot influence the work of the Court. We will wait for a court ruling and then act in accordance,” it was said in a brief answer from the Novi Sad mayor’s Information Office.

In the meantime, on July 23, nearly a month after sending a written inquiry to Gordana Pusic, Argus received an answer from Jelena Atanackovic-Jelicic, the City Council’s member for city planning and the environment. The note confirms that disciplinary proceedings were launched against Zoran Jovanovic “due to the suspicion that he committed two gross violations of work duties by not finalizing the bills in the cases in question, and failing to do so even after receiving written orders from his superior.”

“After the proceedings, it was concluded that inspector Jovanovic had indeed committed the above-mentioned two gross violations of work duties, and was thus found responsible and his employment was terminated. This ruling became final on Oct. 27, 2006, after which Jovanovic filed a complaint on Nov. 13 of the same year, requesting that the ruling be annulled by the Novi Sad Municipal Court – and these proceedings are still in progress,” it was said in the statement signed by Jelena Atanackovic-Jelicic.

Zoran Jovanovic believes that, after everything that has transpired and regardless of the court proceedings under way, the City Administration has a moral obligation to solve the case because the parties currently in power had consistently supported him since his ordeal began, at which time they were in the opposition. “Today they have the opportunity to completely uncover everything I have spoken of, namely the 5.9 million dinar [EUR75,000] deficit in the city’s budget. I stand available to them with all the material evidence,” Jovanovic says.

Aleksandar Radonjic, an official of the G17 Plus party who, as a member of the Novi Sad City Assembly, on several occasions initiated discussions of the Zoran Jovanovic case, claims that the opposition MPs empathized with Jovanovic because he had performed his job absolutely professionally and conscientiously. “We all felt for him because his case was a good example of how entire system was operating. That’s why we asked the City Assembly to determine the facts in this case where a person was persecuted and had his life ruined. We tried, but the authorities, as with some other cases of suspected corruption, didn’t care,” Radonjic says.

Radonjic is convinced that the city’s new leadership will operate differently and will not shy away from problems. “I’m sure that the new authorities will react appropriately and put an end to this. No one wants to talk about it now because the change of government is under way, but because the public has to know what [really] happened, nothing should be withheld. Whether this will happen in the next week or in a month, I can’t say, but I’m sure that Mr. Jovanovic’s problem will be solved, and I’m also sure that he will be able to see the mayor and inform him of the entire case,” says Radonjic.

City Authorities and Morality

According to Nemanja Nenadic from Transparency Serbia, the members of City Assembly who had in the past point to the Zoran Jovanovic case have, in the least, a moral obligation to initiate the solving of the case now that they have come into positions to do so. “The city authorities now have the capacity to investigate this case from all standpoints, but also to help Mr. Jovanovic whose position is unenviable considering it has been a long time since he lost his job,” Nenadic says, and stresses that citizens have all the right to demand that the city authorities undertake other actions, and not just wait for the conclusion of the court proceedings.

Nenadic agrees that the city authorities should not interfere with the court’s decision, but believes they maybe should reevaluate their position before the court and consider whether they have submitted all the relevant data on the subject. “This is something which could be done concurrently with other actions the city could undertake, and this is precisely what the members of the one-time opposition kept saying during assembly sessions in the past,” Nenadic says.

The fired inspector says that his stand on the issue has not changed and that, given the opportunity, he would have acted the same. “Despite everything I’m going through, I remain proud for acting according to the law, professional standards, and in the name of the citizens of Novi Sad. There is a possibility that the ruling which left me without job be revoked once the new city authorities solve my case, but I don’t know how probable that is. The other possibility is for the ruling to be annulled in the court proceedings I launched in Nov. 2006, and that is a question of the judiciary’s independence,” Jovanovic says.

Jovanovic’s lawyer sees no reason why the outcome of the trial would not be beneficial to Jovanovic, as all proceedings against Kelvin Oil were filed under a certain number, which differs from the number listed in the request for disciplinary proceedings. “Administrative proceedings are too serious for anything to be implied. What’s more, Milka Tanasic said in court that she never changed her request,” Miljenovic says.

Nenadic believes that the entire case supercedes the question of whether or not there were grounds to fire Jovanovic, as there are indications that the city’s resources were spent irresponsibly, and that the work of city employees was influenced by city officials. “The amount paid from the city budget, and which was not compensated later, suggests that city resources were abused. An investigation could be initiated by the Budged Inspection, but it is equally logical to expect some action on part of the new director of the public communal company Stan. We often hear in Serbia that the court’s decision must be waited for, which is not true, because many things can be done in the meantime which have nothing to do with the proceedings launched by Zoran Jovanovic. Yet there are grounds for city authorities to re-evaluated their predecessor’s stance in proceedings themselves, as they may perhaps notice an error on their part, whose correction would end the court proceedings more quickly,” Nenadic says.

One Case, Many Suspicions

In evaluating this case Transparency Serbia concluded that there are reasons to suspect that certain other regulations have been violated as well and, therefore, sent part of the documentation to the Committee for Solving Conflicts of Interest. The NGO found indications that Danica Vignjevic, the City Council’s member for communal affairs at the time, influenced Biljana Grbovic, the chief of the city’s Inspection Directorate, to stop all collection from Kelvin Oil. “We haven’t receive any information on the outcome, so we suppose that the case is still being investigated,” Nenadic says.

Regardless of the government organ involved, Nenadic believes that all of them must operate based on an anticorruption strategy and adopted international conventions for the protection of employees. “The United Nations conventions and the Council of Europe’s relevant conventions should be taken into account. While undergoing GRECO evaluation, one of the recommendations received from this particular organization which operates within the European Council was to improve the system for the protection of so-called ‘whistleblowers,’ i.e. employees who point out corruption or other abuses of office,” says Nenadic.

The NGO official claims that the existing legal protection in Serbia has obviously proven insufficient, and believes that this area requires much more work. “Then we wouldn’t have cases like what Zoran Jovanovic is going through, or situations where the people bold enough to point out irregularities in the so-called ‘Road Mafia’ scandal or in the procurement of equipment by the Serbian Rail Company were fired,” Nenadic says.

Attorney Dragan Miljenovic believes that Zoran Jovanovic should be protected by the GRECO agreement. “No one was interested in protecting the city’s budget or the state, but instead what emerged was a vendetta against the person who indicated that in two cases not a dime should have been paid from the city budget. Everything amounted to verbal orders and when Jovanovic sought explanations he didn’t even get the precise written instructions he asked for,” Miljenovic claims.

The epilogue to the Zoran Jovanovic case still seems far away, and until it appears, his return to the city inspection will remain impossible. At the same time those thanks to whom he lost his job, even after the change in city administration, remain in office. Biljana Grbovic is still the head of the City Inspection Directorate, while Milka Tanasic remains her assistant for construction inspection and chief construction inspector.

“The disciplinary proceedings against me we launched by the same people against whom I filed criminal complaints. They also led the proceedings, testified falsely, made the rulings on the primary and secondary level, denied me the right to a defense, without me being able to achieve their exclusion from the case which I requested from Maja Gojkovic, the mayor at the time,” Zoran Jovanovic concludes.

Obliged or Not

The new director of the public communal company Stan, Dragoslav Gavrancic, says that he is currently unable to comment on the demolition of the Kelvin Oil buildings, and will be able to say more once the Budget Inspection audits Stan’s recent business operations.

Gavrancic believes that Stan’s business obligations include evictions and demolitions in the city of Novi Sad. “That is our field of operation and we are obliged to act on orders of the city. Since the city is our founder it is possible for us to receive direct orders so that they are carried out in the shortest possible time,” Gavrancic says.

According to Zoran Jovanovic, the Public Procurements Act is clear, as Article 2 Section 1 Point 1 as well as Annex II clearly state the conditions for demolition work. “It is clear that the public procurement procedure must be implemented for demolition work as well, meaning that a tender for that should have been called. If Mr. Gavrancic has any qualms he should speak to someone from the State Public Procurement Directorate,” Jovanovic concludes.