(Podgorica, 27 May 2013) – MANS supports the actions of all citizens and NGOs directed against the illegal collection of taxes from citizens, including actions by the Podgorica Youth Association. This is particularly the case given that the financial statements of the Parking Service raise the suspicion that the money collected from parking fines isn’t going towards improving the capital city’s infrastructure.
In 2011, the Parking Service collected €1.3-million only from the illegal parking tax. The salaries of Parking Service employees totalled some €1.1-million in that year. Given the above, as well as the repeated messages from Parking Service employees sent to MANS complaining that their labour rights are being violated and that their contracts remain on a month-to-month basis – even after working there for years – raises the suspicion that the bulk of the money received from charging for parking is used to expand the pool of employees and pressure them to vote for particular political parties.
The trend of directing the majority of the Parking Service’s revenues to personnel has been present ever since it was established in 2007. It’s evident that there are no considerable investments in improving parking locations nor in the infrastructure of the capital city. In fact, some designated parking areas are nothing more than unmarked, fenced-in fields on which citizens are illegally forced to pay for parking.
Similarly, the claim by local authorities that the payment of parking fees resolves the problem of traffic is totally wrong. The lack of parking spaces in the city is wholly the result of unplanned construction and the authorities’ fealty to the construction (and other) lobbies who saw an opportunity for a quick turnover in such unplanned construction. The price for such “wild construction” must not be borne by citizens, but by the municipal government, especially its Mayor (who holds the bulk of responsibility for this state of affairs).
For this reason, Podgorica’s Mayor and his accomplices should answer as to why they’ve usurped the space of citizens, in many parts of the city, for the benefit of specific lobbies, while at the same time trying to force them to pay daily rates for the surfaces that remain.
