30. 04. 2004

Ministry to develop guide for privatization

KRAGUJEVAC -- Thursday - The Ministry of Culture and Media is preparing a guide for the privatization of media, in hopes of coming to an agreement on a system that will first and foremost guarantee that the media will respect the interest of the citizens. At a roundtable discussion held in Kragujevac, entitled “Privatization – Now or...," experts came to a general consensus that the main problem is that the government can not come to an agreement over the way in which to carry out media privatization. The Secretary for the Council on Broadcasting, Slobodan Djoric, said that the movement for the privatization of Kragujevac Television was rushed because the ministry hadn’t come up with a plan on how to go about the privatization process. Another problem Djoric said was encountered was that within the privatization process, the jobs and salaries of the current workers were not guaranteed. The forum was attended by members of the Association of Independent Electronic Media, the Agency for Privatization, several nongovernmental organizations and representatives from most of Serbia’s leading media organizations.