{"id":19939,"date":"2016-11-28T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-28T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/vote-buying-and-fraudulent-business-first-now-refugee-relief-fund-manager\/"},"modified":"2019-09-04T18:23:37","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T16:23:37","slug":"vote-buying-and-fraudulent-business-first-now-refugee-relief-fund-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/vote-buying-and-fraudulent-business-first-now-refugee-relief-fund-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"Vote Buying and Fraudulent Business First, Now Refugee Relief Fund Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMany invited guests, including Novi Sad mayor Milo\u0161 Vu\u010devi\u0107<\/strong>, gathered for electoral convention of the Serb Democratic Party<\/em> (SDS) in this city in February 2016. On that occasion, Branislav \u0160vonja<\/strong>, the SDS president, announced joining forces with the Serbian Progressive Party<\/em> (SNS) for the forthcoming elections.
\n\t
\n\tIn April, SNS scored the best election result in Vojvodina, whereas SDS did not even contend for power at the polls. Shortly afterwards, on the 27th of July, \u0160vonja was appointed an acting director of the northern province\u2019s Refugee and Internally Displaced Person Relief Fund<\/em>.
\n\t
\n\tThe Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia<\/em> (CINS) reveals so far unknown details from the political and business career of Branislav \u0160vonja.
\n\t
\n\tMr \u0160vonja was convicted of vote buying in 2013 local elections, but he did not stop there. A company owned by Mr \u0160vonja until recently, Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em> (National Business Operator<\/em>), has been peddling data for a fee, otherwise available online free of charge, to state institutions, local governments, state-run public enterprises and private companies throughout Serbia. From its inception in July 2014 until the end of 2015, the company generated almost 11 million dinars in revenues, according to financial statements available on the Business Registers Agency<\/em> (APR) web site.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\"\"<\/a>\n\t

\n\t\tLocation of Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em>, SB Company<\/em> and SDS<\/p>\n\t

\n\t\t\u00a0<\/p>\n\t

\n\t\tPhoto: Lazar \u010covs<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tMr \u0160vonja has been involved in this business for years. As far back as 2011, CINS wrote about the companies set up by his associate Du\u0161an Olui\u0107 and himself in Serbia and other countries in the region, which were making money in the same manner as Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em> does.
\n\t
\n\tAccording to APR data, Slobodan \u0160vonja, whose other company \u2013 Privredni propisi<\/em> (Business Regulations<\/em>) \u2013 was in the same line of business, replaced Branislav \u0160vonja on the 26th of October 2016 as the company owner. A month earlier Slobodan had also replaced Branislav as a director of Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em>.
\n\t
\n\tEmployees and managers of companies and institutions said that Nacionalni privredni operater representatives were offering data free of charge and requesting only a receipt to be signed. Sales managers would pose as representatives of state institutions, and several months later they would send invoices. Believing that they were deceived, many subsequently brought criminal charges or complaints against them.
\n\t
\n\tIn 2015, Belgrade Public Health Institute filed criminal charges against Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em>.
\n\t
\n\tA man who introduced himself to me as a representative of the Ministry of Economy gave me two USB sticks, said Du\u0161anka Matijevi\u0107<\/strong>, Public Health Institute director, then asked me to sign a receiving slip and left.
\n\t
\n\t\u2018\u2018I wouldn\u2019t have even exposed him, but they failed to make that application on the USB stick well,\u201d explained Matijevi\u0107. As the Public Health Institute\u2019s staff could not open the content on the USB sticks, the institute called the Ministry of Economy only to find that the person in question was not the ministry\u2019s employee.
\n\t
\n\tHowever, in December 2014, Nacionalni privredni operater collected 196,000 dinars from the Public Health Institute. Director Matijevi\u0107 was away at the time, and her assistant was tricked, as she put it, into making the payment against a forged contract with her signature on it.
\n\t
\n\tNacionalni privredni operater<\/em> contracts stipulate their validity for the current and following three years, as well as an option to cancel them but solely in the first week of January for that year only. Relying on these provisions, Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em> attempted to collect money from the institute in 2015 and 2016. They managed to do so in 2016.
\n\t
\n\t\u2018\u2018They contacted directly the head of department for financial and economic affairs, taking advantage of her unfamiliarity with the case at hand (…) and collected another 196,000 dinars from the Public Health Institute,\u2019\u2019 read the damages claim lodged by the institute with the Ministry of Interior.
\n\t
\n\tMr Branislav \u0160vonja did not respond to the CINS requests for an interview.<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tConfidential but Free Data<\/h2>\n

\n\t
\n\tIn July 2014, Branislav \u0160vonja set up a company, Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em>, registered at the same address in Novi Sad as his other firm, SB Company<\/em>, representing South Korean car manufacturer Kia<\/em>.
\n\t
\n\tAccording to the Serbian Treasury\u2019s data, from its establishment until April 2016, budget beneficiaries, including the City of Belgrade, Vojvodina\u2019s Secretariat for Health Care, Social Policy and Demographics and 11 health care institutions, paid over 4.2 million dinars in aggregate into the account of Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em>. The institutions, which responded to requests by CINS journalists, paid this company for data on legal entities.
\n\t
\n\tThe City of Belgrade paid 294,000 dinars for USB sticks with 15 types of data of which all, except one, could be freely accessed online. Almost all such information is available at the Serbian Business Registers Agency which may provide these data free of charge to state organs and local governments.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t

\n\t\tBranislav \u0160vonja\u2019s Political Career<\/h2>\n\t\"Branislav<\/a>\n\t

\n\t\tIn late 2015, Branislav \u0160vonja<\/strong> was convicted of vote buying at local polls in the municipality of Od\u017eaci, according to the District Court in Sombor. With another accomplice he organised a network of people who had been offering 1,000 or 2,000 dinars, as well as consumer goods, to local residents in exchange for casting ballots for SDS in the local election held on the 15th of December 2013.
\n\t\t
\n\t\tAt the time SDS won two out of 27 seats in the local council. \u0160vonja was fined 200,000 dinars which he was to pay in 12 equal monthly instalments, starting in January 2016.
\n\t\t
\n\t\tEven though SDS held its electoral convention in February 2016, the records of the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government show that this party was renamed in mid-2015 as Serbian Renewal <\/em>and that today there is no political party registered under the name of SDS.
\n\t\t
\n\t\tMr \u0160vonja was politically active even earlier. Association Community of Serbs<\/em> from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina<\/em>, whose representative was Mr \u0160vonja himself, signed in 2002 an agreement on cooperation with the Democratic Party of Serbia<\/em> (DSS) and backed Vojislav Ko\u0161tunica<\/strong> as a presidential hopeful. In the parliamentary election the following year, Mr \u0160vonja was a candidate on the joint election list fielded by the Serbian Renewal Movement<\/em> (SPO) and New Serbia<\/em> (NS), while he run for mayor of Novi Sad in 2004. In Croatia, in 2010 he was elected a councillor in Zadar County, but being already a member of Obrovac Town Council he relinquished the new post in favour of Du\u0161an Olui\u0107<\/strong>. In 2013 Croatian elections, Mr Branislav \u0160vonja was re-elected as Obrovac councillor.<\/p>\n\t

\n\t\t
\n\t\tFormer DSS president Sanda Ra\u0161kovi\u0107 Ivi\u0107 <\/strong>brought charges against \u0160vonja in 2011 alleging that he posed as \u2018a fellow fighter, like-minded person and friend\u2019 of her father Jovan Ra\u0161kovi\u0107<\/strong>, the founder of SDS in Croatia. District Court in Novi Sad dismissed the charges as groundless.
\n\t\t
\n\t\tPhoto: Media Center<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tIn November 2014, a representative of Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em> company put forward an offer to compile sets of comprehensive data on legal entities in Serbia, according to officials of the Belgrade City public procurement department, which they accepted \u2018\u2019for the purpose of market research, ensuring competition and implementation of centralised public procurement procedures\u201d.
\n\t
\n\tBelgrade public procurement officials attempted to terminate the three-year contract a week after the signing, but they failed to serve the cancellation notice to the other contracting party as Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em> could not be found at its registered address. The following year, the Belgrade public procurement department refused to receive the data bundles and the bill.
\n\t
\n\tBy mid-March 2016, sixty-four cases involving Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em> had been brought to the Commercial Court in Belgrade. Some lawsuits were pursued by this very company seeking enforced collection of a total of 7.6 million dinars, whereas the remaining cases were brought by clients disputing such claims who saw themselves instead as the victims of fraud.
\n\t
\n\tAmongst others, these are the companies which have taken legal action thus far: Elektromre\u017ee Srbije (electricity distribution company), Zavod za ud\u017ebenike (textbook institute), KBC Be\u017eanijska kosa (a clinical centre in Belgrade), Telekom Srbije (national telecommunications company), Knjaz Milo\u0161 (privately-owned carbonated mineral water producer), Infostan (Belgrade public utility)<\/em>, etc.
\n\t
\n\tSome of them allege that a sales manager of Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em> introduced himself as a person from the Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Health or Ministry of Finance and offered supposedly confidential data free of charge.
\n\t
\n\tA complaint intended to invalidate the contract was also brought by Hidroelektrane \u0110erdap<\/em> public enterprise, and the value of the matter in dispute was a million dinars.
\n\t
\n\tAccording to the allegations in the complaint, an employee of Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em> Du\u0161an Olui\u0107<\/strong> handed over eight packages to responsible persons in that company, but requested only the signing of a receipt.
\n\t
\n\t\u2018\u2018I signed it, the paper with fine print over which he held his hand and pointed with his finger where I should sign,\u2019\u2019 testified director of \u0110erdap 2<\/em> branch office Ljiljana Milicanovi\u0107 <\/strong>before the Commercial Court in May 2015.
\n\t
\n\tMilicanovi\u0107 found it suspicious when her secretary said that she had \u2018an altercation\u2019 with Olui\u0107 as he was refusing to have the document photocopied. She looked in the copy and found fine print in a part of the text stipulating that this was a contract. Olui\u0107 handed to her three folders for 98,000 dinars apiece. That same day earlier, he handed over five packages at the same price to \u0110erdap 1<\/em> branch office director Ljubi\u0161a Joki\u0107<\/strong>.
\n\t
\n\tAt the trial Olui\u0107 denied that he posed as a person from the Ministry of Economy. The then Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em> general manager Du\u0161an \u0160aponja<\/strong> also testified, but the court found both statements to be \u2018contradictory and confusing\u2019 as well as \u2018calculated and designed to avoid liability\u2019.
\n\t
\n\tThe court accepted the testimonies of Hidroelektrana \u0110erdap<\/em> officials and rescinded the contracts. The Commercial Court of Appeals upheld the ruling on the 21st of January this year.
\n\t
\n\tNacionalni privredni operater<\/em>\u2019s bank account was blocked on the 8th of April this year. At present the outstanding debt totals 529,479 dinars.<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tBusiness as Usual for Years On End<\/h2>\n

\n\t
\n\tIn 2013 local election in Croatian Zadar County, Branislav \u0160vonja<\/strong> and Du\u0161an Olui\u0107<\/strong> were nominated on the election list of the Democratic Party of Serbs<\/em>. Slobodan \u0160vonja<\/strong> featured as a candidate on the same election list. In 2010, he set up Privredni propisi<\/em> company which has been in the same line of business as Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em>.
\n\t
\n\tAccording to the Business Registers Agency\u2019s reports, from 2011 until the end of 2015, Privredni propisi <\/em>generated around 9.5 million dinars in revenue. The Treasury\u2019s records showed that from 2011 to April 2016 this company collected almost 2.9 million dinars from budget beneficiaries.
\n\t
\n\tIn the first two months of 2016 only, Privredni propisi <\/em>had a revenue of 784,000 dinars thanks to payments from Smederevo, Zrenjanin and Ruma municipality. Other local governments had made payments earlier such as Ni\u0161, Kragujevac, Negotin and Krupanj.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\"\"<\/a>\n\t

\n\t\tBundle of legal entities\u2019 data sent to Vitalikum<\/em> company by Privredni Propisi<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tIn September 2015, a man who claimed that he was from the Serbian Chamber of Commerce first called and then came, said Borisav I\u010dagi\u0107<\/strong> of Novi Sad-based Vitalikum<\/em> company. The man handed USB sticks, but Mr I\u010dagi\u0107 could not access the contents. Several months later Mr I\u010dagi\u0107 received an invoice of 196,000 dinars and a contract from Privredni propisi<\/em>.
\n\t
\n\t\u2018\u2018No one had ever mentioned any contract, expenses or any services at any time whatsoever either by phone or at the point of receiving the USB sticks,\u2019\u2019 explained Mr I\u010dagi\u0107. \u2018\u2018I saw the contract for the first time when the mail arrived.\u2019\u2019
\n\t
\n\tBranislav and Slobodan \u0160vonja and Olui\u0107 have been doing business in this manner for years, using various companies registered in Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
\n\t
\n\tBranislav \u0160vonja and Olui\u0107 are from Obrovac in Croatia by origin, and the first record of both of them together in Serbia dates back to a purchase of a plot of land in Novi Sad. According to the 2004 property sales contract, Olui\u0107 and Nenad Opa\u010di\u0107<\/strong> sold the foundations of a petrol station in Novi Sad to Novina<\/em>, a company owned by Branislav \u0160vonja, for 6.5 million dinars. Opa\u010di\u0107 had been sentenced to 14 years\u2019 imprisonment over drug dealing and was assassinated in 2015.
\n\t
\n\tOlui\u0107\u2019s company Centar za finansije<\/em> (Centre for Finances<\/em>) was selling data in the same manner as Nacionalni privredni operater<\/em> and Privredni propisi<\/em>. This company crops up as one of the parties involved in over 600 cases brought to the Commercial Court in Belgrade from 2007 until 2014.
\n\t
\n\tDu\u0161an Olui\u0107 had been charged with having attempted to defraud Telenor <\/em>company of almost 600,000 dinars through Centar za finansije<\/em> in 2006, but was acquitted in 2013. The court accepted the testimonies of Telenor<\/em> employees that Du\u0161an and Slobodan Olui\u0107 had been offering CDs for free only to subsequently demand money, however, the ruling was that culpability of the defendants was not proved indisputably and beyond any doubt.
\n\t
\n\tIn 2011, CINS discovered five companies which were selling publicly available information. These companies had the old acronym of Po\u0161te Srbije <\/em>(Post of Serbia public enterprise<\/em>) \u2013 PTT \u2013 contained in their names.
\n\t
\n\tCINS tried to contact Slobodan \u0160vonja, Du\u0161an Olui\u0107 and Du\u0161an \u0160aponja on several occasions using the phone numbers from publicly accessible phone books as well as contact details \u2013 phone numbers and addresses of their companies \u2013 available on APR web site, but without any success.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\n\tThe story has been produced under an EU funded grant, awarded in the Media Programme 2014. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the EU.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t<\/em>\"\"  \"\"<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Branislav \u0160vonja, a politician convicted of buying votes, was appointed a director of Vojvodina\u2019s refugee relief fund. A private company, owned by him until recently, whose representatives pose as state institutions\u2019 officials, makes millions by peddling for a fee information which is otherwise free of charge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1338,"featured_media":16450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1492,1573,1572,1583],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investigative-stories","category-political-parties","category-public-officials","category-serbia","ciTrackContent"],"acf":[],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/1479135891~~Ilustracija-\u0110or\u0111e-Mati\u0107-(1).png","author_additional":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1338"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22277,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19939\/revisions\/22277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}