By Ognjen Radonjić and Vladimir Obradović, professors at the University of Belgrade and members of the Inquiry Commission.
The tragedy in Novi Sad could have been avoided.
This is indicated by a document obtained by the Inquiry Commission for examining responsibility for the collapse of the canopy at the Novi Sad Railway Station, which shows that the cause of the tragedy does not lie solely in technical shortcomings in the reconstruction of the canopy, but also in corruption reflected in the continuous, systematic ignoring of documented risks, criminal complaints, and structural problems in the way the state selects, supervises, and rewards contractors.
It is precisely an internal report on works on the construction of the railway line on the section from Belgrade to Stara Pazova, which also includes criminal complaints against the contractor, that shows the competent authorities had enough information to foresee and prevent the later tragic outcome, but chose to ignore it.
From the electronic correspondence initiated by Snežana Ristić, an employee in the cabinet of the then Deputy Prime Minister and line minister, regarding the construction of this section, it can be concluded that Zorana Mihajlović scheduled a meeting for 17 August 2020 with the Chinese ambassador and representatives of the Chinese company CRIC, one of the contractors on that part of the railway line. The reason was the accumulated problems in the execution of the works, which is why it was requested that a report be prepared for that meeting, as can also be seen from the copy of the attached correspondence in Figure 1.
The key finding of this internal report is that the modernisation of the railway from Prokop to Stara Pazova is seriously delayed, that systemic problems with the quality of works, documentation, and management have already led to the suspension of works and inspection measures, and that criminal complaints and several reports for economic offences have been filed as a result.
The commercial contract (under the FIDIC Yellow Book model), signed in 2016 during the government of Aleksandar Vučić, entered into force at the end of 2017. The Chinese consortium CRIC-CCCC was introduced to the project as contractor on 5 June 2018, and the deadline for completion was 36 months, until 5 June 2021. Under the revised technology, the left track was to be completed by the end of March 2020, the right by the end of October 2020, and trial operation by the end of 2020. It turned out, however, that by August of that year, after two of the total three years since the start of works had passed, less than 25 per cent of the work had been completed, so the report explicitly states that the contractor would not be able to meet the contractual deadline.
The document also notes that the contractor spent more than a year and a half of the contracted three years on internal organisation and obtaining certificates for Chinese equipment, as well as on wavering in the selection of subcontractors, some of whom had negative references in Serbia. For some subcontractors, the consent of the investor and financier was never even requested, although they were carrying out works on the construction site, which directly undermines the contractual and regulatory framework.
Time wasted on attempts to prove the unprovable quality of old pillars
The report states that the stumbling block from the outset was the preparation and harmonisation of a detailed dynamic plan, which was never submitted in a form compliant with the contract, nor did it reflect the real situation on the construction site. After months of harmonisation, the plan was formally adopted in August 2019, with the obligation for the contractor to update it monthly, but updated plans were never delivered in the required form. In the absence of an up-to-date plan and execution technology (Method Statement), supervision and the investor are practically unable to monitor the fulfilment of contractual obligations or to base any serious claim for damages or penalties.
The design documentation, namely the design for the building permit (PGD) and the detailed design for construction (PZI), was contracted under the FIDIC Yellow Book model, whereby the contractor’s designer was CRDC with the subcontractor CIP, meaning that responsibility for the quality of the designs and the delivery schedule of the documentation lay with the contractor. Part of the key documentation, in particular the PZI for the overhead contact line, was delivered late, together with the problem of the expiry of CRDC’s major licence, which led to the legal invalidity of part of the documentation and its subsequent rejection by the investor. Only after months of disputes did the contractor, on 12 August 2020, accept the new PGD for the overhead contact line delivered on 3 July, which, according to the report, resulted in valuable time being lost on attempts to prove the unprovable quality of the old pillars.
The report states that these problems were visible even before the meeting of 17 August, as evidenced by numerous meetings and letters from Minister Mihajlović to the Chinese ambassador, the deputy director-general of the Chinese railways, and the director of the contractor.
The greatest number of shortcomings was identified in the overhead contact line (OCL), where a series of serious technical and legal irregularities was established. Works on the foundations and poles of the OCL between Batajnica and Stara Pazova were carried out without an approved PZI, before the issuance of confirmation of the commencement of works, contrary to the design for the building permit and technical regulations, often during the curfew (due to the pandemic) and at night, without the presence of supervision.
An inspection carried out on 3 June 2020 led first to the suspension of works on the entire section due to improper marking of the construction site, and then on the section of the railway from Batajnica to Stara Pazova because of numerous unlawful actions and orders to amend the building permit.
Foreign actors and their superiors protected by institutional silence
As a consequence, the construction inspector filed a criminal complaint against the responsible engineer of the company CRIC for construction contrary to the building permit and technical documentation, thereby having “endangered the life and bodily integrity of people and property of greater value”. In parallel, reports for economic offences were filed against both members of the CRIC–CCCC consortium and their responsible persons, because they carried out works contrary to the technical documentation, without adequate design documentation and without proper maintenance of the construction log.
Overall, these were not minor procedural errors, but a precisely described systemic pattern of conduct that directly affects the very core of safety – construction outside the design, without control and without any trace in the documentation.
It is striking that Imre Kern, then State Secretary at the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, informed participants in the email correspondence on 14 August 2020 that criminal complaints had been filed. However, the available documentation shows only one such complaint.
Even more symptomatic, however, is the pattern that repeats itself in the case of the construction of the section from Novi Sad to Kelebija – criminal complaints are consistently filed exclusively against Serbian citizens, and specifically those in executive, lower hierarchical positions, while proceedings against the Chinese participants are limited only to economic misdemeanours, without any criminal liability at higher levels of decision-making. Such a structure of action cannot be interpreted as an isolated case, but rather as an example of systemic selectivity in the enforcement of the law, where responsibility is focused on domestic executors, while foreign actors and their superiors remain protected by institutional silence.
Financial implementation and implications for subsequent sections
The report introduces a multi-layered concept of responsibility, with primary responsibility resting with the contractor (the Chinese consortium), followed by the supervising authority, the investor (Serbian Railways Infrastructure), and finally the financier (the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure).
For the contractor, it is stated that it failed to comply with contractual provisions regarding the timely submission of the PZI and construction methodology, applied outdated technologies (manual excavation, manual concrete production on site), did not install the appropriate grade of concrete or adequate quality of reinforcement, did not use modern geodetic methods to mark pole locations, and knowingly carried out works in defiance of supervisory bans. The supervisory body, on the other hand, recorded objections in the logbook and correspondence but did not react to the inspection authorities in a timely manner, and during the state of emergency caused by the pandemic was not present on the construction site while the contractor was working intensively, which allowed irregularities to accumulate.
The investor appointed the engineer and the supervising authority in a timely manner, but failed to secure the major licences for the contractor/designer in due time, which calls into question the formal validity of the work of the engineer and the supervision until mid-2020. In addition, the investor did not itself initiate inspection procedures despite the irregularities that had been observed.
According to the report, the financier formally fulfilled its obligations under the 2018 Financing Agreement, covering even tasks that would otherwise have fallen to the investor, but it does not have the staffing capacity to decide on technical issues and relies on Serbian Railways Infrastructure for all technical decisions. The financier did, however, play a key role in launching the tender for a new international engineer/supervisory body (DB Engineering) and in exerting pressure on the contractor through the NoC mechanism (Notice of Correction) and by conditioning the advance payment for the section from Novi Sad to Subotica on the successful resolution of problems on the first section.
By the time of the August report, the advance and 12 interim payment certificates had been paid, totalling 137.59 million dollars, or 39.29 per cent of the contracted amount, with the note that none of the poorly executed works on the overhead contact line between Batajnica and Stara Pazova had been paid for. The financier adheres to a fast payment procedure, even within shorter deadlines than those stipulated in the contract, which means that the cause of delays does not lie in liquidity or payment administration, but in the organisation and quality of the works.
At the same time, the financier and the investor are intensively preparing for the second section, from Novi Sad to the state border (conceptual design completed, review carried out, conditions in place for the start of the PGD and PZI), and do not recommend terminating cooperation with the negligent contractor, but instead propose that the advance for that section be made conditional on progress and the consolidation of the situation on the first section, from Belgrade to Stara Pazova.
The central message of the document is that the current project management model, with the dominant role of the contractor and weak supervision, generates serious risks to safety, quality, deadlines, and the budget, and that redirecting control (supervision, licensing, inspections) is the only way to stabilise the project.
The tragedy could have been avoided
The content of the first criminal complaint and the entire report points to the conclusion that the tragedy in Novi Sad could institutionally have been prevented by not engaging the same consortium as contractor on the subsequent section, under the same system of control and decision-making. In short, the state, formally speaking, had evidence that this consortium possessed a risky pattern of business conduct and behaviour that endangered public safety, which was an obvious red flag before the start of works on the section from Novi Sad to Kelebija.
Moreover, one of the contractors, the Chinese company CRIC, is currently also working on the reconstruction of the 53-kilometre railroad from Sombor to Vrbas and the 150-kilometre Novi Sad–Bogojevo–Subotica railroad, and it has been announced that it will also be engaged in the reconstruction of the railway line from Pančevo to Subotica, with a branch towards Kikinda and the Romanian border.
The other contractor, CCCC, on the other hand, is in Serbia mainly engaged in the construction of road infrastructure, on several sections of the Miloš Veliki motorway, from Preljina to Požega and from Surčin to Obrenovac, as well as the high-speed road from Surčin to Novi Beograd.
(Radar, 30.01.2026)
https://radar.nova.rs/ekonomija/izvestaj-koji-je-najavio-tragediju-u-novom-sadu/