02. 11. 2005

KRAGUJEVAC AGAINST PRIVATISATION OF RTK BEFORE FREQUENCY ALLOCATION

KRAGUJEVAC, November 2, 2005 – The mayor of Kragujevac Veroljub Stevanovic and representatives of the union of Radio Television Kragujevac (RTK) urged the state authorities at the press conference yesterday to defer the process of privatisation of this media outlet until the allocation of frequencies to the electronic media in Serbia. “We demand the revision of the decision to initiate the process of privatisation of RTK, brought by the Government on October 21. The city is opposing to the privatisation of the station under these circumstances. The local government intends to reshape RTK into a regional media outlet before the frequency allocation tender, which should put its price up in the privatisation”, Stevanovic said, adding that “some people would want to buy the regional media outlet at a very low price and misuse it as an instrument of their political party”. Presidents of the Independent Union and Nezavisnost Union of RTK, Jugoslav Barjaktarevic and Dejan Djusic, have backed up the mayor’s standpoint. They pointed out that RTK had been loaded with problems, before all the ambiguous tenure and business relations with the cable network SBB, which still needs to be investigated. Beside abrupt decision of the Serbian Government to initiate the process of privatisation of RTK, this media outlet is also in the focus of attention of the local public due to the anticipated dismissal of the current director Slavica Trifunovic. Mayor Stevanovic repeated yesterday that the Trifunovic’s dismissal would be proposed at the next Assembly’s session, scheduled for Friday, November 4. The Liberals of Kragujevac “struck back” saying that if their renowned member, RTK director Slavica Trifunovic, and the head of the Sports Center Mladost Branislav Derovski, also a Liberal, were removed from their positions, the party would step out of the coalition majority the day after tomorrow. Speaking for the daily Danas, leader of the Liberals of Kragujevac and also the president of the City Assembly, Dobrica Milovanovic, denied yesterday ever being so determined in the decision to stop participating in the activity of the local parliament’s majority. “Such decision could only be made by the Presidency of the Liberals of Kragujevac in its full constitution. On the other hand, we went to the polls together with the non-party individuals, as coalition “For Our City”. We will see what happens after the session of the City Assembly on Friday”, said Milovanovic, adding that he would state his opinion on dismissal of the RTK director and SC Mladost “when the time comes”.