December 26^th

The contract was signed between the Novak Djokovic Foundation, the City of Nis and the Preschool Institution Pcelica on the adaptation of the old school for the kindergarten in the Medosevac settlement. Nis City Deputy Mayor Milos Bandjur signed the contract on the behalf of the City of Nis together with Gorana Džudža Jakovljević from Novak Djokovic Foundation and Zoran Jonic from Preschool Institution Pcelica. This contract is the introduction into one of the projects that were selected at the competition in the period from November 20^th to December 20^th last year. The funds will be invested in the reconstruction and adaptation of preschool and school facilities, as well as the purchase of necessary furniture and equipment for children from 20 cities across Serbia. Projects will also include facilities in municipalities affected by floods during 2014 and 2016, and the adaptation of spaces in underdeveloped environments.

December 26^th, 2016
The Mayor of the City of Niš, Mr. Darko Bulatovic and the Chairman of the Assembly of the City of Niš, Mr. Rade Rajkovic held a press conference in the presence of numerous guests, at which they summarized the results of their five-month operation.

“After five months of work, I have to say that we have been trying to meet your needs, to solve the problems one at a time, by giving our professional and personal maximum and by being guided by the interests of the city and each individual citizen. At the beginning of my term of office, I have promised to do everything in my power to contribute together with my team to the happiness, pride and satisfaction of our citizens so that they can exercise their rights through the administrations within local-self government, which will be organized differently; my goal is that we all do the right things for the city and the citizens in order to live better.

After five months of work we have created some preconditions for it. We have enacted the new Statute of the city and adopted the real possible budget for the year of 2017. We are trying to finish the work on the improvement of the essential urban traffic. We are expecting the arrival of new investors. The City of Niš possesses a qualified workforce and this is something that has to be our advantage for attracting investors and for opening new factories and jobs. We are expecting the realization of the project that has been discussed over decades ago. Finally, the works on the relocation of the railway from the city center should start. The funds for the expropriation, which will be conducted during 2017, have been allocated. We should also start the arranging of the new pedestrian zone next year. We are planning to relocate the market in the coming years in order to present Fortress, which is undoubtedly our enormous tourism potential, at its best and to maximize the use of all the facilities that it can provide to the city and its citizens. Indeed, this is only one part of what we have been doing. The citizens have closely monitored our work, given the fact that we have been meeting almost every day, both in the field and in the City Hall, where we have tried to listen to all those who have contacted us and to solve their problems.

The more is yet to come. The citizens have entrusted us with an important task to take care of the city and create better conditions for life in it. We are trying and we will try to justify the trust given, to listen to the needs and wishes of our neighbors and to jointly create custom-made Niš for those who live in it.

I take this opportunity to thank the citizens for their patience and understanding, to thank my associates who supervise my activities as well as the activities of the city councilors, so that everything should go best.
I’ve always been an optimist throughout my life, and in the same way I look at the years ahead. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us but I firmly believe in our joint success. The city is run by preserving its tradition and cultural heritage, by knowledge, by nobility, by sport successes, by communion, but also by love and courage to change and grow.

“I wish you a successful and happy New Year, may it bring peace, health and joy, and may your New Year and Christmas holidays be filled with joy, warmth and hope of a better tomorrow”, said the Mayor of the City of Niš, Mr. Darko Bulatovic.

The Chairman of the Assembly of the City of Niš, Mr. Rade Rajkovic, at the beginning of his speech, announced the names of the winners of the highest award of the City of Niš, “11^th January Award”. This year’s winners of the highest award of our city are:
– The Faculty of Electronic Engineering in Niš;
– The National Library “Stevan Sremac” Niš,
– The Prizren Seminary “St. Cyril and Methodius “Niš;
-Mr. Bojan Jovanovic, a scientific advisor- anthropologist;
– Mr. Aleksandar Grbović, Head of the Penal and Correctional institution in Niš.

“From today’s point of view, I think that the success of all Nis citizens in 2016 is the fact that we have chosen a government that serves citizens. We set ambitious goals from the outset in order to be an example to other cities in Serbia and in the region. The Assembly of the City of Nis held, apart from the constitutive session on June 29^th this year, a total of 8 sessions, each of which had a comprehensive agenda and constructive approach to work. During the conduct of the Assembly, I took care that the councilors and I, above all, respected the laws and all legal acts, and maintained a level of democratic discussion as well.

The difference of opinion is a reflection of democracy and political culture, so I did not allow suppression of critical thinking and constructive attitudes, of both government and opposition, despite the fact that I belong to the ruling party.

I want to emphasize that the City Assembly had continuous and correct cooperation with the executive part of the government, with whom we have coordinated and synchronized activities, so that the agenda included all the proposals of the City Council.

As valuable work principles we have set: transparency, commitment and legality. Therefore I developed a practice to regularly hold consultative meetings with the heads of the parliamentary groups, which has now become standard practice and it has already given positive results. In the end, given the cause of today’s meeting, I would like to wish a happy New Year and Christmas holidays to all of you present today and to all Nis citizens, with the assurance that the City of Niš in 2017 will be better, nicer, safer and happier place to live”, said Mr. Rajkovic.

December 23^rd

Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic extended his congratulations on the occasion of celebrating Christmas by Gregorian calendar wishing that the Christmas would bring mutual understanding, respect and tolerance. My wish for you is to spend this holiday in good mood, health and joy, and at the same time, I wish you a lot of success and personal happiness“, said Mayor Bulatovic.

December 23^rd

Nis City Deputy Mayor Milos Bandjur met today with the students of Nis primary and secondary schools who won one of the first three places at official national and international competitions as individuals or team and presented to them traditional city awards. Given that competitions organized by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development are held after the deadline for awarding the “St. Vitus Day Awards”, another round of awards was organized today. Deputy Mayor Bandjur said on this occasion that the awards were symbolic, but that they were certainly an incentive for further work and promotion. He congratulated all the winners and thanked them for representing their schools and the Nis in a worthy way, noting that the Commission for the Encouragement of Talented Students did not have an easy task in choosing the best. He especially emphasized that he believed that many of these young, talented fellow citizens would be successful scientists or professors in the future, and that the intellectual potential of young people in Nis was remarkable. In addition, the City of Nis allocated a total of 2 734 000 dinars for the St. Vitus awards for this year, and a total of 288 students were awarded.

December 22^nd

Nis City Council Member for Sports and Youth met today with the students of the Nis Faculty of Economics who won the second place at the international marketing competition held in the Portuguese City of Porto and congratulated them on excellent placement in Porto and expressed the readiness of the city to recognize the work of young and talented people and help in accordance with the possibilities. The Delegation of the Nis students was also assisted by the Nis City Youth Office as well as some of the city’s public companies. In the competition of 37 teams, young team from Nis won the second place, and their work presented a good practice of using marketing tools on the example of a successful company from Nis.

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.