29 April, 2014, Belgrade

CEDEF and PKS IV Public Debate

TRANSFORMATION OF PUBLIC UTILITY COMPANIES AND THE ROLE OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES - current projects and technologies

CEDEF organised the IV Public Debate TRANSFORMATION OF PUBLIC UTILITY COMPANIES AND THE ROLE OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES - CURRENT PROJECTS AND TECHNOLOGIES in cooperation with the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, under the institutional auspices of the Ministry of Mining and Energy of the Republic of Serbia, the Agency for Environmental Protection of the Republic of Serbia and the Secretariat for Environmental Protection of the City of Belgrade, on 29 March 2014, in the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia. More than 40 representatives of public utility companies and over 30 representatives of local governments from all over Serbia will be present, including: Niš, Čačak, Topola, Pančevo, Mionica, Paraćin, Nova Varoš, Bečej, Lazarevac, Užice, Beograd, Aranđelovac, Nova Varoš, Zrenjanin, Kovin, Sombor. All of them were actively participating in CEDEF and PKS Public Debate, and they pointed out the significant difficulties faced in working on current projects and technologies that are important for the sustainable operation of the PUC. According to the data listed in the proposal strategy of restructuring the PUC, in JK companies there are more than 53 000 workers representing about 2.5% of total employment in Serbia. The total revenue of PUC in 2007 was around 100 billion dinars, which is about 2% of Serbia's GDP, whereas the expenditures of PUC were about 8 billion higher than the revenues. Long-term illiquidity and losses caused by technical obsolescence and inadequate maintenance lead to the general neglect of the poor state of municipal infrastructure, services unsatisfactory quality levels and leads to a low security of supply.

The Programme of the Debate can be downloaded here.