Remember - when was the last time you saw that in the nearby park, the Belgrade PUK "Zelenilo" watered the green areas so that they would remain green? When was the last time the street you pass by all the time, which is full of potholes, was completely renovated, so that you have to drive 20 an hour?
What does Belgrade water taste like today, and what was it like 10 or 20 years ago? Those scalameris on which children fall over, which they made back then, and local hooligans broke and twisted them in a month - when were they repaired? Do they still stand so unusable, while they are surrounded by overflowing baskets overflowing with garbage and the "lawn" so yellowed and overgrown that it could pass as a prairie?
How are you breathing, are you suffocated by the Belgrade air in winter? Having problems with ragweed? Where does sewage waste go, if you're lucky enough to have one available? How is public city transport for you, do you know when it will arrive and which route it will take?
How many illegal buildings have been built in your neighborhood, and how many have been connected to your electricity, water and sewerage? How many trees did your street have 15 years ago, and how many are there today? Where do you find a parking space? Can you bike around town?
"Vreme" has already written many times about the progressive invasion of Belgrade, and the undersigned journalist has repeatedly studied the spectacular ways of "running the city" and "projects" on which Mali, Vesić and now Šapić used money from the citizens of Belgrade. However, today Belgrade seems so broken and in the phase of disintegration that it is no longer easy to even begin any analysis of the work of the city government.
And during that time, Mayor Šapić appears in public once a month or every few months - to brag about the results, to announce new "projects" that were apparently thought up the previous evening, and to verbally settle and insult journalists who are not to his liking.
JA, KING OF ROUNDBALLS
For days, videos have been circulating on social media showing cyclists falling and being injured due to the latest invention of the city authorities – a low wall on the road, which limits new roundabouts and which, unfortunately, looks like an ordinary drawn traffic lane.
In addition to the danger to cyclists - let's say that a cyclist falls while he is next to a bus or there is a bus or a truck behind him - there are also videos of cars that, just as involuntarily, "riding" the wall and damaging the vehicle, thinking that it is a sign on the road that they have seen all their life.
Such innovations of the city leadership are themselves the tip of the iceberg of bizarre, harmful, and in the best case, unnecessary investments in fixed-ideas of the leadership.
Because, as the previous one mayor Goran Vesić had an unbearable desire to build fountains (and remove trees), so the current leader of Belgrade has been tirelessly building roundabouts where they don't belong for months, all under the slogan of "traffic relief".
As the traffic is "relieved", again, videos from social networks show, so the "double" bus needs tens of seconds to pass through the new roundabout on Terazije, and it passed that intersection in a second.
By the way, information that may be of use to you: this roundabout is marked with horizontal signage, which our law does not recognize and can lead to traffic accidents: the drawn sign does not suggest that the U-turn must be carried out through the roundabout, but it seems as if it is possible to turn even before the roundabout, thus automatically entering the opposite direction and the risk of an accident increases significantly.
photo: marija jankovićANOTHER ROUNDBALL, BUT WITH A CLOCK: Trg republike
Crowds have already been recorded on Republic Square, which also features a new roundabout, and there is also a well-known example of the famous roundabout in New Belgrade before the Branko Bridge, which replaced the traffic lights, only to be replaced by the mayor soon after due to the newly created crowds.
A similar thing happened at Autokomanda, where the city authorities first introduced traffic lights, and then - after the epic crowds that were created - turned them off a few days later...
photo: marija jankovićCircular flow between the city and republican assemblies
Only the roundabout between the city and the republican assembly can boast of the absence of any crowds. This traffic masterpiece, which, unlike other, ordinary roundabouts, has an exit in only two directions - it cannot turn left or right, but only a U-turn - has not yet had the opportunity to show how much it will speed up and "relieve" traffic.
ALAN FORD AND PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
Namely, the center of the city has been blocked for months by a group of - it is well-founded suspicion - criminals: they spread out first around Pionirski Park, fenced it off, fenced it off, and then moved to the road and pitched their tents there, completely cutting off an important city traffic artery. They are guarded by the police, visited by the president and deputies, and no one can do anything about them, not even the mayor Šapić, as he once admitted.
These traffic innovations and feats are just a detail and an indication of the planning power that the city government possesses. And when you look at the city budget, it's much easier to see where citizens' money goes.
Here, for example - public city transport. At the end of 2024, the mayor triumphantly announced that from January 1, 2025, all city transportation will be completely free. That "free" city transport costs about 330 million euros from the city budget, and it has never been explained anywhere what analyzes the city authorities conducted to establish that exactly such a solution is necessary for Belgrade and, above all, sustainable.
Well, the transport is "free". However, thanks to long-term planning, the public utility company "Naplata prevozne usluge" - founded only a few years earlier - became completely redundant with the abolition of ticket collection. Readers will agree that there is absolutely no reason why, after fare collection has been completely abolished, the PUC "Transport Charge" should still exist, because - what would it actually do? It would do nothing, the reader will conclude, and the journalist will also conclude. However, PUC "Collection of transport services" continued to exist even after the cancellation of the collection of transport services. And not only did it continue to exist, but it was operating at full steam.
For the first three months of 2025, this public utility company recorded - surprisingly - a total of zero dinars from the sale of goods, products and services, but it received 1,3 million euros from the City, while at the same time it had as much as 2,56 million euros of cash outflow "from business activities", which, as we said, were non-existent. During those three months, a total of 232 employees worked (something, I guess) and received a salary, and the company even managed to spend seven million dinars on compensation under the work contract and another 1,74 million on compensation to natural persons based on other contracts.
Of course, in order for a public utility company to function (and do nothing), it is necessary to call for public procurements, so the latest public procurement plan also includes packages for employees' children, and "informing users of public transport at bus stops" - as if the mayor had not already acquired those one-sided electronic boards that sometimes show the exact time when the means of transport will arrive.
It was only at the end of May 2025 that the city authorities realized that even by their standards it was quite bizarre that there was such a company, so they changed its name. Under a new name - PUK "Public Transport Management Belgrade" - this superfluous enterprise entered the "domain" and jurisdiction of the Secretariat for Transport, but, my God: where the cheljad is not angry, the house is not cramped.
And this gem-enterprise is again just one example of the work of the city authorities.
Photo: Sava Radovanović / Tanjug...
A MAD WASTE OF OUR MONEY
For example, the budget for 2023, the first for which the then new Šapić administration was in charge, provided for around one and a half million euros for the so-called civil defense. Two and a half years later, the budget review for 2025 foresees more than six million euros for this purpose.
The city is now paying fines and penalties, i.e. almost 25 million euros in damages, while the budget for 2023 predicted a little more than six million euros for the same purposes. In 2023, the subsidies amounted to around 30 million euros, while in 2025 that amount increased to 80 million.
One could go on like this for a long time - for example, the interest that the city has to pay increased from 14,5 to 17,8 million euros, but there are also examples in the opposite direction - investment in environmental protection was reduced from 80 to 71 million euros.
And what is the city investing in?
For example, the city invests millions of euros - and plans to continue doing so in the coming years - in the development of light traffic signals. Drivers should let us know if they have noticed any improvements in this area. The city invests more than half a billion euros per year in "traffic organization and traffic infrastructure"; invests almost the same money in the rehabilitation of (all) unsanitary landfills in the territory of Belgrade as in the construction of one (1) green roof on the building of the Public Enterprise "City Housing" in Voždovac.
The city, without any particular need, renovated Nikola Pašić Square for almost nine months. Almost five million euros are planned for something called the "Innovative Operations Center of the City of Belgrade" this year, about four million for the procurement of specialized software for the municipal militia, and for the development of "Smart service management" within the project "Belgrade Smart City" - 4,6 million euros...
Within the same project, it is planned to establish a "safety platform" in schools and kindergartens on the territory of Belgrade, which will cost the city 8,6 million euros this year, while another four million is planned for the establishment of an "integrated security system" this year.
Even those things that in principle must be praised - such as the renovation of schools or the purchase of trams - become potential corruption affairs. Thus, Belgrade is renovating existing schools at prices for which new ones could be built: Elementary School "Oslobodioci Beograda" is being renovated for 2,8 million euros, while the reconstruction and renovation of the Trade School costs almost 4,5 million euros. On the other hand, the media wrote widely about the overpayment of the newly acquired trams (3,2 million euros per piece), experts warned that this type of tram is too wide for Belgrade, and that such a brand new tram would derail at the beginning of August at Autokomanda...
What else is the city spending wildly on?
For some reason - to the markets. After Palilulska, the City turned its attention to the reconstruction and extension of the Kalenić market. The price? A real trifle - only 10 million euros in 2025. Similarly, Obrenovac also felt the need to build a new green market complex, which will cost more than five million euros this year.
By the way, these two investments are managed under the "Community Development" project. What else is in that project? The construction of the famous linear park, which Vesić knew back then, before any tenders, would cost 55 million euros. Unfortunately for the people of Belgrade, it will cost more, and only in the period 2025-2027. it is planned that 31 million euros will be spent for these needs of the new elite on the stolen riverbanks.
With the unnecessary spending and flaunting of the city, which does not meet the basic needs of its residents, the funds for what the city really needs are disappearing. Thus, the construction or completion of some key roads, such as Patriarch Pavle Boulevard or important facilities such as the bus station in New Belgrade, is constantly postponed for the future.
However, hundreds of thousands or millions of euros are constantly being spent on new uniforms for various new units in Belgrade, brand new buses are being painted in (non-existent) "Nemanjić blue" for no reasonable reason, and the dice are still being rolled on Republic Square... At the same time, the city has for a long time failed to issue a tender for the procurement of new buses - obviously intended for a certain company - which the competition will not beat.
Also, money has been distributed for "free" textbooks for several years, but this year the City is also paying 3,6 million euros for digital textbooks: does anyone remember if those Vesic tablets intended for students were ever used for educational purposes?
And in the end, even what is repaired - Dreiser's Street is widened for another lane - takes an infinite amount of time, with the obligatory several inadvertent drilling of pipes and resulting unprovoked waterfalls, to the delight of the opposition media. It is probably for these and similar reasons that the City had to borrow a little more than four million euros from AIK Bank in June: it did not have the money to pay the value added tax (VAT) for the 25 new trams purchased.
It has already been said - it is very difficult to analyze the moves of the city government while the city they manage (and the state) is literally falling apart before our eyes. After liberation, Belgrade will need a long recovery and a long investigation into where the citizens' money disappeared, but above all, it will need an administration that understands the city and wishes it well.
