NEWSLETTER No. 2

June and July in the territory of Pomoravlje Region can be described through the following activities:

                By the decision of the Municipal Administrative Body in the territory of Pomoravlje Region, works on utility infrastructure extension and reconstruction and urban refurbishment of the entire region went on throughout June and July. 

Possibilities and conditions for restructuring and privatisation of big public companies have been considered and programmes of economic crimes and drug addiction prevention have  continued. In addition, owing to the projects of several non-governmental organisations, as well as in accordance with the municipal departments, the organisational development of local self-management units has continued and conditions have been established for the social dialogue to begin, with respect to ecological, utility service and subsistence problems of the people living in Pomoravlje Region. At the beginning of June, the City Planning and Construction and Utility Service Departments in Pomoravlje municipalities, started preparing the programme for the legalization of a certain number of commercial and residential buildings, built without the construction or urban development permits in this territory. Aiming at an improved layout of the entire region, the Administrative Body of Paracin Municipal Assembly and other Pomoravlje municipalities initiated the designing of the general urban development plan for their region, which should, according to their expectations, be completed by the end of the year.
                 Rehabilitation works on the sewerage and water supply systems in Pomoravlje Region have started in many locations during the last two months and some estimates have been made on development opportunities regarding utility infrastructure, especially in rural areas of the Region. With a view to providing  better water supply for a certain number of municipalities, the project titled "Gorunje 2002" has started, aimed at constructing four Renney wells, with the investment of about 30 million dinars. Gas pipeline construction for 187 households in Paracin Municipality started on 1 July, whereas the Construction Department of this Municipality finished the study towards the end of June on possibilities of the town heating network reconstruction and on creating conditions for the new usage of this system. Similar utility projects are being implemented in the territory of Despotovac, Jagodina and Svilajnac Municipalities.

                In June, Paracin Municipal Assembly Executive Board adopted the proposal of activities concerning prevention and counteracting drug addiction in its territory and formed a Municipal Board, which will be dealing with this problem in time to come. With a view of the fact that the entire Pomoravlje Region has long been a black dot in the map of Serbia when it comes to drug dealing and drug addiction, for the last two months, members of  Jagodina Secretariat of Internal Affairs, non-governmental organisations as well as of the competent municipal services of  Jagodina, Cuprija, Svilajnac and Despotovac municipalities have continued with the struggle against the expansion of the drug dealing network and have organised several lectures aimed at pointing to the young the consequences of drug addiction and alcoholism and criminal behaviour inevitable in such cases. On the occasion of Police Department Day, Jagodina Secretariat of Internal Affairs announced that public law and order in the region of Pomoravlje had been preserved and that satisfactory outcome in counteracting criminal had been achieved. Unfortunately, during the previous months in the territory of Jagodina, Paracin and Svilajnac Municipalities there has been a rise in economic crimes and cases of malpractice.

                Within the process of economic restructuring of Pomoravlje, urgent privatisation of Paracin “Serbian Glass Factory” was announced at the beginning of June, and there are eight foreign investors interested in the purchase, but the estimates are that the restructuring process will leave 1,500 workers redundant. 

In addition, during this period there have been discussions on the conditions of the forthcoming separation of the Public Company for Subterranean Coal Exploitation in Resavica from the Electric Power Industry of Serbia (EPS). There have also been activities for environment protection in the last two months.

With a little help of some non-governmental organisations, ecological services of Pomoravlje municipalities have made a record of big and small-scale air and water pollutants. An example of such activity is the Cadastre of pollutants for Paracin Municipality, published in June, with listed industrial enterprises from the entire region that are hazardous to water fitness and purity. Furthermore, a number of relevant environment municipal services of Pomoravlje Region have shown interest in producing local ecological plans, as early as possible, for the territory of each municipality, in cooperation with the Regional Environment Centre for Central and Eastern Europe.

Centre for the Development of Non-Profit Sector of North-East Serbia and the Civic Forum of Miners from Resavica organised a forum on 21 June, titled:
”Non-governmental organisations and local community development”, aimed at analysing the local self-management competence to cope with the challenge of decentralisation.

The International Red Cross Federation gave its consent for the young activists of the  Red Cross to gather at the river Grza, Paracin Municipality, from 22 to 29 July.The participants were young people from Sumadija and Pomoravlje, Rasina and Timok Regions.

  However, the manifestation that marked the month of July was certainly “Caravan of explorers – the river Morava secrets” and the popular rafting event "Morava regatta", held in the spirit of setting in not only the Morava events but also such festivities that would preserve the cultural heritage of Pomoravlje Region, as well as gatherings of the young and marking of the biggest pollutant tributary streams of the river Morava watershed. 

There were only a few humantarian projects in the territory of Jagodina Municipality throughout June and July, some of which were "Hospital – friend of newborn babies and mothers", realised by Jagodina Health Centre, and the project aimed at the disabled - "Town accessible to everyone", realised by the Centre for the independent Life of the Disabled -  Jagodina branch office and financially supported by the Republic Ministry of Labour, War Veteran and Social Welfare Issues. The Democratic Youth of Paracin organised an action in June titled “Reforms take guts" aimed at informing the citizens of this municipality of goals and further phases of economic and political reforms in Serbia, apart from which the citizens were offered the possibility to evaluate the work of the Republic Government so far, by way of public polling. 

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