Easily verifiable lies of Goran Vesic

Goran Vesic, the deputy mayor of Belgrade, who is not competent for this matter, continued to comment on the procedure of “public bidding” for the lease of sports facilities in Dorcol, which was conducted by the city Commission for Business Premises. He did not hesitate to use lies – very easily verifiable – which, unfortunately, the media transmitted without any verification.

According to the first lie, “world companies that meet the conditions for organizing tennis tournaments could also apply for the ad.” The advertisement,  removed from the city’s website in the meantime(!) but saved in the internet archive, states as a first condition that the tenant can be a “legal entity established in the Republic of Serbia that has been operating for at least one year”.

Another lie is that the “obligation in the tender was” (for the bidder) to be able to organize the ATP 250 and ATP 500 tennis tournaments. The advertisement mentions ATP and WTA tournaments series 250 and does not state duty to prove that tournaments will be organized in the future, but only that such a tournament has been organized in the past year.

The third lie is formulated as follows: “Nenadic… told the untruth that the City of Belgrade announced a competition for renting tennis courts and swimming pools within the Sports centre ‘25. May - Milan Gale Muskatirovic’. A simple untruth and lie. The advertisement lists the cadastral parcels, and there are only tennis courts and an accompanying facility in the tennis function. No pools were advertised”.

Then, a part of the advertisement was copied, which shows that the subjects of the lease were “indoor and outdoor facilities within the sports complex in Belgrade ... on cadastral parcel no. 1/2, 1/3, 1/33, 1/37, 1/39 and 2771/11 KO Stari Grad”. After that, the advertisement states the total  ​​indoor and outdoor facilities area, without specifying which parts of these plots are given in lease.

As everyone can see on the page (https://a3.geosrbija.rs/), the most significant part of the first-mentioned parcel no. 1/2 consists of indoor and outdoor pools, and to a lesser extent, tennis courts. The deputy mayor and the tenant probably know which facilities are the subject of the lease, but this was not known from the advertisement for the public tender. Also, the ad did not state any additional documentation where the subject of the lease is described in more detail.

In his statements, Vesic constantly mentions the organization of tennis tournaments as a reason for renting facilities, which may be true. However, the advertisement does not state the obligation of the tenant to really organize ATP or WTA tournaments in the next 20 years, but only that the facilities are given “for the purpose of performing sports activities” (any).

In addition, it is essential to point out that although Vesic constantly refers to the best tennis player in the world, Novak Djokovic is not in any contractual relationship with the city, the company Familly sport is. We recall that the City of Belgrade had the opportunity to legally and with clean bills support the organization of the Serbia Open tournament - e.g. by conducting a procedure for public-private partnership or budget subsidies for sports, instead of conducting a “public tender” for a pre-selected partner.

Finally, Vesic reiterated the previously made dangerous and unfounded accusations against the program director of Transparency Serbia, Nemanja Nenadic – that he “leads the campaign against Novak Djokovic” and “that he (Nenadic) has always been in the function of someone’s policy”. If it is necessary to repeat: the subject of consideration of the TS, in this case, is exclusively the actions of the city authorities, which are obliged to take care of the public interest in disposing of public property, and not the activities of private companies that care of their own or athletes’ interests.