Auctions

Almost every day, the daily newspapers include ads for auctions of business space. The principle is the same whether it's a sale or rental: you get to see the space on a given day and then send in a written offer.

This seemingly honest procedure has been spoiled in practice: an enormously high offer is made and when that is withdrawn someone chosen for the site steps in. That way everything is legal but actually someone linked to the seller gets the offices.

The army's buildings directorate (which recently advertised office space in Belgrade) figured out a way to get around the tricks: if the highest bidder withdraws the same price is offered to the other bidders. The directorate recently asked bidders if they wanted to rent space across the street from Belgrade's Metropol Hotel for the highest bid of 200 Dinars a square meter (realistic offers stood at 25 to 40 Dinars).

Some potential bidders feel the directorate could have ordered the highest bid.

 

Guilty

Finally, the people to blame for passing out the high school enrollment tests have been found. In Novi Sad daily Dnevnik, Serbia's Education Minister Dragoslav Mladenovic blamed parents, adding that people had overreacted to the scandal since "in market economies even state secrets are leaked". "Most of the blame in this dirty deal lies with parents who think money can buy everything," he said and added that children just copied their parents. With that logic in mind, the conclusion that imposes itself is that the monetary coup last March can be blamed on ordinary people who paid four Dinars for the German Mark, racketeering on store owners who prefer to pay and not get bombed and so on. The education minister could be right: the officials in his ministry who leaked the tests are probably someone's parents.

 

Name

A recent session of the Vojvodina Football Association executive board renamed the Vojvodina league (third ranked competition) into the Serbian league North - Vojvodina Group. They decided to transfer jurisdiction over the league to Belgrade although it includes only Vojvodina clubs.

The party of Young Reformists of Autonomous Vojvodina (MRAV) spoke up calling the public to "oppose this senseless decision". MRAV feels, they said, that the renaming is equal to renaming the Vojvodina philharmonic to Serbian philharmonic - north.

 

Pensions

The declaration of a state of war in Banja Luka and across the Bosnian Serb Republic (RS) brought draft notices for students and professors.

The declaration came at the same time as an initiative by the RS education minister to increase student numbers.

Bars and restaurants in Banja Luka are still open until 10 p.m. and shops keep to the usual hours.

Just prior to the state of war (July 31), Banja Luka pensioners finally got the pensions they'd been waiting for for seven months. Since average pensions stand at 40 Dinars, pensioners, who aren't included in the decree on supplying the population or humanitarian aid programs, are now faced with even greater living problems.

Rents have gone up by 100% and communal services by 50%. A liter of cooking oil costs two German Marks or five Dinars.

Pensioners have become the most endangered category in the RS.

RS leaders are yet to discuss a pensioners' demand to make pension funds untouchable.

To date, every attempt to organize a street protest by pensioners has been qualified as a hostile act by political institutions.

 

Bread

The most sought after product in Leskovac over the past two months was bread. Just a quarter of the needed supply reaches shops while the rest ended up as pig food through strange channels. There were rumors of embezzlements and the lines got longer in front of bakeries. After some unconvincing explanations by Umipek director Zoran Savic, Mayor Gojko Velickovic demanded his resignation at a town hall session "because he can't understand people want to eat bread". That session concluded that they would stand firm in ousting the directors of Umipek and Pekara, even if they have to impose temporary measures. SPS councilor Dzafer Sabanovic admitted then that his voters were dealing bread at higher prices in come parts of town.

Late in June, despite low prices, the bakeries produced a record 60,000 breads a day. Instead of resigning, the director decided to impose special measures in Pekara to avoid getting ousted.

 

Land

Belgrade's Cukarica district is quickly gaining the image of an elite suburb, especially some of its parts. After Emir Kusturica decided to buy a plot of land in Kosutnjak, which is in the jurisdiction of the city authorities, both the city and local council are expected to rule in his favor. Using celebrities, Cukarica asked Belgrade Mayor Nebojsa Covic to approve changes to urbanistic plans for parts of Kosutnjak near the University School of Physical Education. Their intention is to build 10 apartment buildings for "Belgrade's deserving citizens". Covic is the man who once spoke of an urbanistic Mafia.

 

Discrimination

The failure of this year's tourist season on the Adriatic coast (the part of it in FR Yugoslavia) was clear after a glance at price lists and it has now crossed the line towards catastrophe. Before the season started, a family of three could go to Greece for two weeks for much less money than two weeks at Ada Bojana. In mid-season, that difference in prices grew. Finally, at the end of the season (August), tourist companies decided to drop their prices radically and, as at the start of the season, the race was on. The only thing they forgot were the people who planned, and paid for, their vacations earlier. They won't be giving back any money.

 

Ambassador

Unofficial reports said Dojcilo Maslovaric will soon become the Yugoslav ambassador to the Holy See. He is currently Serbian Government Secretary for Foreign Affairs. His appointment to the sensitive post in the Vatican seems to come after new criteria were adopted for diplomats. Notably, he was promoted to ambassador soon after several days in the company of JUL leader Mira Markovic during her successful tour of China.

So, another former republican foreign minister will be in Rome soon. Former Montenegrin Foreign Minister Miodrag Lekic is already there as ambassador to Italy.

 

Payment

The start of payments for wheat to farmers had to be conducted as a huge police procedure by the Serbian government so that none of the initial 27 million Dinars would get to banks. The first 27 million to pay for 35% of the wheat harvest got to Vojvodina from the republican budget on August 1 to the state auditing service which immediately imposed a state of emergency.

Twelve cashiers in the service followed by all kinds of cops, went out to start paying for the wheat bought from 6,000 farmers around Novi Sad. In Subotica, 10 cashiers are carrying around 4.8 million Dinars for 7,500 farmers with the only limit being the time needed to count the cash. Since non-liquidity is a chronic disease in Vojvodina, financial inspectors are taking care none of the money goes the wrong way. The effects were good: black market exchange rates in Novi Sad have been stable at 2.55 Dinars to the DEM. That is a simpler explanation than the search for the people behind the monetary coup. Obviously when the state wants to keep the Dinar stable it has to avoid its own financial institutions.

Business banks are so far gone and are so deep in black market foreign currency exchanges that they could not be trusted with this relatively small payment to farmers.