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During the next winter months Belgraders will be cold, they will not be able to drive their cars and will probably not have enough to eat. An announcement by the municipal crisis staff responsible for supplying the city made on June 19, 1992 whereby Belgraders would be issued with coupons for 4kg of sugar, 3kg of salt and detergent, 5kg of flour, 4 liters of cooking oil, could become a reality soon.

Officials (republican ones who have taken over the majority of competencies in Belgrade) continue to claim that no one in the city will starve, and intentionally or accidentally overlook the views of those supplying the city with all necessities.

The suppliers claimed several months ago that a shortage of money and a stop in production would result in serious shortages, and they were right. This is clear to anyone who looks at a shop window, or at people dragging sacks of food from faraway wholesale markets or out of the way shops.

The republican authorities will probably try to solve this problem (with the introduction of coupons) or state purchase, which of course, will only increase all round misery. "We still don't know in what state the winter will find us, or what awaits us," as Radenko Stanic, PKB (Belgrade agri-business) information center director, told VREME. "We don't even know what tomorrow brings, let alone the next few months."

Fuel shortage is an even greater problem than "state measures" for producers and the above mentioned PKB. Speaking of fuel, it need be said that according to official data, Belgrade's annual regular requirements are: about 600,000 tons of coal, 280,000 tons of petrol, 350,000 tons of masut, 110,000 tons of heating oil, 340,000 cubic units of natural gas, 15,000 tons of liquid gas and about 5,800,000 MW of electrical energy.

Optimists might think all these are mere trifles, but pessimists are already saying that the citizens might be without heating until December 1, and that the public transport company will be functioning for another month - from the day of writing (Thursday, Oct.1,1992).

To make matters worse, many problems will crop up only with the onset of winter. It is still not known how much coal the city will need, as the real demand has not yet begun, and most of this coal used to come from Bosnia.

One thing is sure - nothing has changed in the Belgrade transport company (GSP) since the mid-eighties when President of the City Committee of the Communist Party Slobodan Milosevic called it "inhuman." In fact, things have become worse, and will deteriorate even further.

GSP needs 110 tons of fuel daily in order to transport its 2.5 million passengers. It lacks 500 buses under normal conditions, and of its current 990 buses, at least 200 are too rundown for exploitation and there is a shortage of spare parts which could not be found in the former Yugoslavia, let alone the present one. Imports from Germany stopped long ago because of sanctions.

"Ikarus" (producer of buses and lorries) is not working for the same reasons, so that GSP did not get any of the planned 137 new buses. Petroleum for GSP requirements comes from Nis, but sometimes it doesn't arrive, as happened the other day when 250 buses stayed in the depot because a tank with 30,000 liters of fuel failed to show up. All these factors point to a transportation disaster in the very near future, and have resulted in secondhand Pony bicycles costing 300 DEM.

All moves made in such a situation are desperate ones. When it had been learned that the printing works in Topcider had printed 200,000 Travelcards for refugees, the city authorities tried to introduce a drastic scheme in order to cut down on the number of passengers. GSP decreed that refugees, pensioners and the unemployed were forbidden to use city transportation during the crush hours. Somebody must have pointed out that the pensioners made up a significant part of the electoral body and the decision was scrapped after only one day. This has left the GSP searching for desperate solutions and daily quarrels among its passengers.

In a recent interview, Slobodanka Gruden said: "The mechanical inflow of people to Belgrade must be stopped". As if anybody is asking for her opinion.

Zdravko Prodanovic, "Beograd put" technical director, says that sanctions have resulted in direct and indirect consequences. The direct consequences are: the current fuel shortage - of which there is not enough for regular daily needs, let alone winter conditions. "Beograd put" are responsible for clearing snow and ice from 4000 Belgrade streets, of which GSP passes through 433 main streets. There are also another 1000 side streets and 611 kilometers of regional roads to be cleared.

In the event of a cold winter, many streets will be left snowed up, because the 13,500 tons of salt which "Beograd put" has, can cover only a mild winter. The salt comes from Tuzla (B-H). If the winter is severe, the salt will be used up by January.

An indirect consequence of the sanctions is the fact that the majority of service companies cannot operate properly because they lack spare parts. "Beograd put" is an example to point - it has TAM lorries (made in Slovenia) so that no spare parts can be found.

All in all, the prospects do not look too bright. Road construction firms and transportation companies and those in charge of the city's heating system, such as Milan Dostanic, Municipal Electricity Supply Administration director, who claims optimistically that the "heating will be of a lesser quality", are waiting to see what the winter will bring.