December 22^nd

The subsidies in the amount of 4.7 million dinars have been allocated from Nis City Budget by the Action Plan for Employment for 2016 for employers who will hire the unemployed persons from the hard-to-employ category including young people under 30, older than 50, workers declared redundant in their companies, members of Roma nationality, people with disabilities and working-age beneficiaries of financial social care assistance. The subsidies in the amount of 150,000 dinars per person are allocated for the employment of people with disabilities and 180,000 for the employment of working-age beneficiaries of financial social care assistance. In this way, 62 of our fellow citizens were hired by private citizens.  “The City of Nis, on the basis of the Employment Action Plan, has defined these funds because we want to establish stability and maintain a trend of growth in employment in the city, and in this way we also want to help those who, due to age, objectively have major problems with opportunities for employment, and also to encourage employers to hire individuals older than 50 years, and young people, without experience. Of course, the City will continue to help. Our goal is to train a large number of our fellow citizens for occupations that will be needed in the future, due to the arrival of new investments in our city.  Next year, three major investments will be realized and new jobs will be opened, which is our goal. We want to further develop the economy and create the conditions for our fellow citizens to be employed, to stop the outflow of young people abroad, “said Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic, who awarded contracts to the employers. He stressed that 30 347 persons are currently unemployed in Nis, which is less than last year and added that the realistic expectation was that this number would be even lower in 2017 due to new investments that would be realized. By establishing the Local Employment Council and adopting the Local Action Plan for Employment for this year, the City has in fact recognized the possibility of influencing the employment policy in its territory and establishing measures to reduce unemployment. 30 million dinars for incentives for employment will be allocated from the city budget for 2017.

December 22^nd

The Council for Human and Minority Rights, which was formed by the decision of the Nis City Council, after its constitution, adopted the plan and program of its work. According to the Nis City Council Member for Social Care Issues Tijana Djordjevic Ilic, who attended today’s council session, said that it was important for local self-government to constantly protect and promote the rights of national minorities in our city, especially in the fields of culture, education and information. “So far, we have tried to work together with the representatives of national minorities through the work of the Council for Human and Minority Rights on the city plans and programs that contribute to the achievement of national equality. The new council has been constituted recently and the goal of all of us together is to continue to promote mutual understanding and good relations among all the communities living in Nis, “said Djordjevic Ilić. She added: “I believe that the activities envisaged and the local action plans to be worked out will improve the position of national minorities and reduce the unacceptable differences between certain national minorities, as well as to annihilate the differences between the vulnerable categories of our fellow citizens.”

December 21^st

The City Municipality Crveni Krst marked the 12^th anniversary of its existence. Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic congratulated the jubilee to the management and citizens of the municipality and pointed out that the city municipalities justified the purpose of their existence as a service for citizens in a certain area. At the ceremony hosted at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering, the guests were addressed by the president of the City Municipality Crveni Krst Miroslav Milutinovic. Meritorious individuals and organizations were presented with plaques as a sign of gratitude for contributing to the affirmation of the municipality, and Mr. Zoran Jovanovic, the long-time director of Nisekspres, was chosen for the honorable citizen of this city municipality.

December 16^th

The public debate was held on the financing of sports programs in local self-government units attended by RS Sports Minister Vanja Udovicic and Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic. “Serbian top athletes began their sporting career in small clubs, school halls or open terrain in local self-government units. Today, these sports clubs are facing a problem that is reflected in the lack of financial resources, reliable work and development, on the one hand, and the lack of, or inadequate sports infrastructure, on the other. Local level sports organizations have limited resources, and often have a very narrow base for income, so that their sustainable funding is a functional priority, “said Mayor Bulatovic in his introduction speech to the debate  adding that the City of Nis, given the new law on sports and rules on club financing, decided to fund clubs through projects. This means sports clubs are assisted through the financing of their projects which are evaluated by Commission for Sports formed by the City of Nis comprised of renowned, winner of sports prizes, professors, selectors of national teams or, in a word, representatives of all relevant sports factors in the city, who therefore have a high level of expertise and objectivity in assessing submitted projects.

December 15^th

Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic and the representative of the Siemens Company Udo Eichlinger signed the Agreement on business-technical cooperation between the city and this company. “Bearing in mind the goals of the City of Nis and our concept of strategically developing Nis in the field of technical infrastructure, energy sustainability and transport, and being aware of the fact that Siemens is recognizable on the world market for the reliability and quality of its products and services in the fields of energy, transport and information technologies that are integrated so as to enable the sustainable development of larger cities, while respecting our mutual desire to cooperate in areas of common importance, today we signed the Agreement on business and technical cooperation. I expect this cooperation to be beneficial to the success and sustainable urban development of our city. I believe that we will make reasonable efforts together to expand and improve cooperation on the application of innovative technological solutions,” said Mayor Bulatovic.

December 12^th

Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic met today with H.E. US Ambassador to Serbia, Kyle Randolph Scott, and discussed the improvement of cooperation between the City of Nis and US representatives in our country. At the meeting it was pointed out that, in the past period, the cooperation was at an exceptional level and that more than one billion US dollars were invested in Nis that many programs, financially supported by the Embassy, were realized, but it was also pointed out that there was certainly a place for improvement of cooperation. Mayor Bulatovic said that, as a local community, the City of Nis was very interested in the realization of the American investment Novi Nis, for which the foundation stone was laid in April this year, that there was excellent cooperation with the company Philip Morris, but that as a city we wanted more US investments in Nis. Ambassador Scott said that he would do everything in his power to co-operate with the center of South East Serbia, and Nis, in all fields.

December 9^th

Up to 20 children from Nis schools will take part in the competition Serbia in the Rhythm of Europe that will be organized next year. The meeting was held with the school directors at the City Hall in order to get acquainted with the competition rules and audition for the selection of the most talented children to represent Nis. According to the organizers, the auditions will be organized early next year, and immediately thereafter free training for the selected children. Nis City Council Member for Education Bojan Krstic said that our city had many talented children, that the selection of the best would not be an easy job, and expressed the hope that those children representing the Nis would master the tasks. “Given that Nis was selected to represent Turkey, I am sure this will be an easy task, because in our language there are many Turkish words. Also, we owe the Turkish ambassador’s gratitude for recommending our city to the organizers. Relations between Nis and Turkey’s representatives in Serbia have always been excellent and this is an ideal opportunity to connect culturally”, said Krstic.

December 9^th

In the presence of Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic and a large number of guests Special School Bubanj celebrated its day at the Nis City Hall. After screening a shorter film about the history of this school, the students had the opportunity to present some of the activities that were being realized in this school, such as a fashion magazine of t-shirts, made in the school, as well as the musical program that they prepared together with their teachers. Mayor Bulatovic, on this occasion, thanked the teachers in this school for everything they were doing for their students: “I am convinced that the teaching staff and all the employees of the Special School Bubanj are investing great love and understanding, unlimited patience, professional initiative, skill and talent, so that children could gain confidence in their abilities, built themselves as personalities, master knowledge and skills and satisfy the basic human need for self-realization.” He added that the local self-government is proud of what the Bubanj Special School was doing. “I am sure that each of us, whether he was different or not, should enjoy full and quality living in conditions that ensure dignity, promote self-confidence and facilitate active participation in the community. Our goal is to provide conditions for this, and I believe that, despite the difficulties, we will show that we are a society in which the equality of all citizens is guaranteed, “the Mayor said.

December 8^th, 2016
Anti-corruption dialogue “The fight against corruption at the local level” organized by the Local anticorruption forum, has been held at the City Assembly; this has been a closing dialogue of such kind for this year, prepared by this autonomous and independent city body.

The immediate reason for presenting the dialogue on the aforementioned topic is a current development of the Local Action Plan Model for the fight against corruption, the Anti-Corruption Agency is responsible for, in cooperation with the local self-governments and other stakeholders. On the basis of this model, all local self-governments in Serbia in 2017 should make and adopt their local action plans of this kind. It is expected that the Local Action Plan Model should also offer the model of local anti-corruption bodies primarily responsible for its implementation.

Anti-corruption dialogue is one of the measures within the Local plan for the fight against corruption of the City of Nis, which was adopted by the City Assembly in July 2011.

At the Anti-corruption dialogue event, the citizens talked with the Mayor of the City of Niš, Mr. Darko Bulatovic, with the Chairman of the Assembly of the City of Niš, Mr. Rade Rajkovic, with the Deputy Director of the Anti-Corruption Agency, Mr. Vladimir Joksimovic, with the Director of the Bureau for Social Research, Mr.  Zoran Gavrilovic, and with the coordinator of the Local anticorruption forum, Mrs. Zorica Miladinovic.

December 7^th

On the basis of the Nis City Council Decision of 29/11/2016 the Council for Human and Minority Rights was constituted today. Ferhad Saiti was elected as the president at the first session of this council, which was attended by Nis City Council Member for Social Care Issues Mrs. Tijana Djordjevic Ilic. The new Council intends to continue with the work started in the previous period with the task of providing recommendations and advisory assistance to the executive authority – the Nis City Council. At the constituent session, new members of this Council, who mainly come from the ranks of national minorities and organizations fighting for human rights protection, were also presented as well as the procedures for submitting proposals as well as the plan and program of work for 2017.