Pavle Radulović, the Minister of Sustainable Development and Tourism, finally contradicted himself when, confronted with the facts, he admitted that the Tara River has been devastated, more than 20 days after this was confirmed by the UNESCO report.
The minister said yesterday that the Tara River was not completely endangered by the construction of the highway, having previously claimed that the river was not at risk at all, and that nothing unusual was going on the ground near Mateševo. Although the choice whether to trust footage from the ground or what the minister said was not particularly difficult, Radulović has been persistent in trying to mitigate responsibility, both his own and the responsibility of CRBC for what is going on at the Tara River.
On the other hand, NGO MANS is pleased with the fact that Minister Radulović, pressured by assessments from international addresses, finally changed the point of view and acknowledged to the public that devastation is really taking place.
Moreover, in connection with the (non)working of the inspections, the Minister said that there was no “policy of impunity”, even after NGOs and the media repeatedly claimed that it was obvious that almost no inspection control was carried out on the impact of the construction of the highway on the environment, especially in the part of the impact on the Tara River.
It has been officially confirmed recently that the Chinese company and its subcontractors do not suffer almost no consequences due to non-compliance with environmental standards when the Administration for Inspection Affairs submitted to MANS information that in four years since the beginning of the construction of the highway, its environmental inspection visited the site only about 70 times. Although it is clear that the environment is suffering under the impact of negligent contractors, the environmental inspection imposed minimum penalties at that time.
At the same time, the Administration for Inspection Affairs continues to refuse to provide any concrete information on what were the omissions for which these minor penalties were imposed, thereby directly violating the Law on Inspection Control, which must be public. In addition, in this way the Constitution of Montenegro is not respected, because data on the state of the environment are hidden from the citizens, which is one of a series of shameful examples of the attitude of institutions of the system towards the public.
Minister Radulović, provided he feels the slightest amount of responsibility towards the public office he performs – paid for by the citizens of Montenegro, would have to set a good example and demand disclosing of all environmental data at the construction site of the highway and around it, by which he would partly show that he works in the public interest, instead of the interest of the Chinese company CRBC and its subcontractors.
Nevertheless, every activity of Radulović in connection with the biggest infrastructure project in Montenegro has so far been aimed at protecting the interests of Chinese and protected domestic companies, to the detriment of the public interest.
MANS
