Welcome to the wonderful world where there are no laws or they are applied selectively, to the world of wild construction, evident corruption, blind, deaf and dumb state administration and the world of forgiveness in which after one press conference of Aleksandar Vučić, the triumph of urban populism begins
The application process started this week illegal facilities under the symbolic name "Svoj na svome". After the adoption of the law in the Parliament, citizens started submitting applications for about 4,8 million different, sometimes decades old house, apartments, shed, garage, economic, auxiliary, improvised, temporary and permanent, brick and added or over-built, partly legal and partly illegal construction miracles of residential and non-residential type.
Regardless of the intention and consequences of this action, the entire public, including TV Maniacs, could become familiar with all the construction, bureaucratic and state forms of pathology in which we have literally been living and working for decades.
This process can be done through the appropriate portal of the Agency for Spatial Planning and Urbanism, in the offices of municipalities throughout Serbia and in 580 branches of the Post of Serbia. Electronic registration officially started on Monday at 4 am, when all hackers in Serbia were awake and active, especially those who live in houses and apartments that have not been legalized. They played games all night, and before dawn they were ready to log in and be on their own.
They are enabled to do everything in a few clicks through personal data and e-administration accounts.
Unfortunately, during the first day, the system crashed on several occasions, or it worked slowly. You could have noticed that even if you just wanted to visit the login page. The instructions look simple and clear, on the site you have several animated videos that show you what you should do - not to mention where to click. Apart from the brochure, there are 12 other categories of facilities for registration, and my favorite among the so-called "non-residential facilities" are sports and health facilities. Already in the definitions of the categories, you can see that illegal construction is present in a wide range of forms and purposes, so you may wonder how someone, for example, built and used a health facility located in an illegal building?
To repeat, it is estimated that almost five million improvisoriums should be registered in Serbia.
However, it is much more interesting for the televisions to film the queues, mostly of senior citizens in the Municipalities or in front of one of the branches of the Post Office.
The competent minister Sofronijević also took a picture there, who was there to help those who couldn't handle the papers. There was also a colleague Anđelković from the Post Office, who praised her diligence. Until this registration rush passes, private agencies will deliver Temu or Shine packages to citizens, mostly through parcel machines. No one writes New Year's cards anyway, and bills are proverbially late.
I have to say that the public immediately noticed and accepted the styling of Minister Sofronijević, who dressed as a character from "Better Life", and thus probably softened the coldness of our institutions, which citizens generally enter with trepidation. She relaxed the atmosphere, like a more experienced colleague from the counter who, when she sees that a pensioner is getting away, says "give it to me, now we will solve it!"
On the same day, Minister Handanović sent a completely different message, humbly and nasally declaiming places in Serbia where there is only the Nisova pump. This one would blow you off the counter just like that.
And that queue for reporting stories is on its own. Reporters sent on assignment to record the excitement actually showed us something much more significant. This line reminded me of the big reset after the breakup of Yugoslavia, when people waited in similar lines to get various "papers" official. Certificates, citizenships, driver's licenses, marriage certificates, death certificates, papers for cars, tractors, tillers, like some heaven's gates where, at the former Federal MUP or SIV, stood a bearded uncle to whom people described in a few words what they had come for. He then sends you to a counter or to an office. Today, the situation is similar, because among the surveyed citizens, you could hear countless variations on the topic of illegality.
It's like when you meet a person with a bunch of findings in a health center or clinic and you ask - "what's bothering you?". He bought a house from the owner who died, so the legalization was not completed, he had a house, then he added a floor, his grandfather got a lot like Thessalonica, then a garage was built, and the neighbor moved out or they shared with his uncle, and grandma didn't want to rewrite and so on a million times.
I wonder if those who built villas, warehouses, health facilities, a hotel on top of Kopaonik, are waiting for the same or if they did it electronically.
For decades in this country, there have been people in municipalities and relevant ministries, agencies, and institutions who have not done their job. This is a multi-million dollar demonstration of urban chaos, and I also thought how many millions were given as bribes to first build these facilities and then to use them for years. This registration also does not include checking whether the object in question is located on the plot intended for construction and does not check who the owner is. It is a case of "own on mine" or "own on someone else's".
I feel especially like a donkey today, because I have people in my family who on at least two occasions (the last time it was during the time of the Vesić-Mihajlović urban planning duo) paid for and registered objects for legalization. Unfortunately, these people escaped either from Kosovo, or from Bosnia, or from Croatia. They paid for every application, aerial surveys, surveyor's arrivals, introduction of water, electricity, obtaining a house number. Those who respected the regulations and duly registered the construction, paid for the design, this government will make fools of them with the massive announcement of legalization. You will not see or hear them in the state polls. Yours yours!
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