It is not yet known when the main bus station will be relocated from the city centre to Novi Beograd, that is when it will be completed.
The decision on this is not made by the municipal authorities, but by the Board of Directors of the Belgrade Bus Station (BAS), which consists of 11 directors. BAS owns only 3.3 percent of the shares and the rest are owned by small shareholders.
In 2017, the contract for the construction of the bus station in Block 42 in Novi Beograd was signed between BAS and the municipal authorities. The groundbreaking ceremony on the construction site was carried out in 2018 and the construction began in 2019.
“We have a permit that was issued in December 2021 and it says we have to register the construction work with the municipal authorities within three years and obtain use permit in five years’ time the latest, so we have another four years to finish the station,” says the president of the BAS Independent Trade Union, Slobodan Kovrlija.
In order to build the bus station, BAS took out a 12-million-loan, while the rest of the money should come from its own budget.
Years passed, costs increased and debts started to appear while due to the pandemic, BAS lost 35 percent of its income.
“Now we have another problem. The Martinovic family is claiming that a land plot on which we have started the construction is theirs. As it turns out, the Belgrade authorities have not fulfilled all their obligations, and we also have not fulfilled all our obligations because the pandemic set us back,” Kovrlija points out.
The small shareholders hope to find a joint solution with the company’s management and the municipality. Until that happens, the main bus station will stay where it is now.
(Danas, 05.07.2022)
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