UNS: The President of the Municipality of Despotovac Illegally Annulled the Media Competition

UNS reminds the president of the municipality of Despotovac that the Law on Public Information and Media (ZJIM) clearly stipulates who has the right to participate in the competition and requests that he does not discriminate against media outlets, but instead implements the Law and allocates the funds in accordance with the reasoned proposal of the commission.

As can be seen from the documentation published by the municipality of Despotovac in the Unified Information System (JIS), the project evaluation committee assessed the projects and proposed the allocation of funds, after which the president of the municipality decided not to implement the committee's decision but to suspend the competition.

Branimir Grulović, a member of the project evaluation committee, confirmed to UNS today that committee members were not informed about the president's decision to annul the competition, nor was anyone from the municipality invited to notify them.

“After reviewing the submitted projects through the JIS portal, and considering the availability of content to target groups and the proposed budgets, that most projects are implemented via internet portals, that the majority of the population in the municipality is older and makes less use of internet portals, and that the projects do not specifically mention the processing of topics and events of significance and special interest to citizens, we believe that the submitted projects do not meet or insufficiently meet the interests of the municipality's citizens,” states the Decision on the Suspension of the Competition.

UNS emphasizes that the ZJIM provides that “the decision on the allocation of funds is made by the head of the authority that announced the competition, based on the reasoned proposal of the commission” and that this decision “cannot deviate from the commission's proposal unless the commission's proposal is contrary to the regulation or the criteria published in the public call.”

UNS also reminds Marjanović that the ZJIM stipulates the obligation of local self-government units to conduct an analysis of the necessary media content every three years, starting from the definition of public interest in the field of public information as defined by law, and to prepare a report on that analysis, which is an integral part of public competitions.

Given that the report on the analysis of necessary media content was not published as part of the Despotovac competition, Marjanović's claim that the competition is being suspended due to the fact that “the projects do not specifically mention the processing of topics and events of significance and special interest to citizens” is unjustified.