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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Corruption in construction, urbanisation to be eliminated

Belgrade, 17 September 2008

Serbian Minister of Environmental Protection and Spatial Planning Oliver Dulic said today that he has full support for controlling corruption in the areas of construction and urbanisation, and added that laws which will make it legally possible to accomplish this will most probably be adopted by the end of the year.

Oliver Dulic

Author: Tanjug

In an interview for the news agency Tanjug, Dulic said that this will above all be the duty of local organs, since most of the corruption in construction and urbanisation is at the municipal and city levels.

According to Dulic, one of the priorities of his Ministry will be to redefine procedures for issuing building permits under the new laws thus preventing any possibility of arbitrary interpretation of regulations, which facilitated corruption at the local level.

It would be good to deal with a few serious cases during the next few months as a general preventive measure so that at future talks with foreign investors there would be less criticism or time consuming administrative procedures, inefficiency and corruption, said Dulic.

He added that the Ministry cannot raise questions about the source of financial assets of investors who are currently building in Serbia, but he expressed conviction that the problem will be resolved by the law on prevention of money-laundering or the law on confiscating assets obtained through crime and corruption.

We will attempt to regulate the system in a thorough manner and will not allow those who have amassed wealth through crime to invest in the area of construction and urbanism and continue with criminal activities, explained the Minister.

He said that in the very near future results will be visible in many areas where corruption is most often seen in our society.

According to Dulic, corruption has seriously harmed Serbia’s prospects of attracting foreign investments and is directly linked to unemployment, slow economic growth and the quality of life.

The recently adopted Law on forming an anti-corruption agency speaks of the sincere efforts of the Serbian government to deal with corruption. The bill stipulates strict regulations for government officials to report their assets and rigorously defines the concept of an institutional fight by the state against corruption, concluded Dulic.