Initiative for determining the nullity of the contract on Prokop

The Coalition for Supervision of Public Finances and Transparency Serbia sent an initiative to the Republic Public Prosecutor's Office to initiate a procedure for determining the nullity of the contract on the construction of the railway station “Prokop”, parking and accompanying commercial facilities. This contract, concluded between the Republic Directorate for the Property of the Republic of Serbia and the company Railway City Belgrade is against the regulations and as such, it must be annulled after the appropriate legal procedure.

For the realization of this project, the Republic Directorate for the Property had the legal possibility to initiate or unify the public-private partnership procedure, if the conditions are met, or several separate procedures regulated by the laws of the Republic of Serbia - one for the procurement of railway station construction works and the other for the sale of construction land for the construction of commercial facilities.

Instead, the directorate decided to conduct a procedure that is not regulated by any legal act and which does not provide an adequate level of transparency, precise criteria for selecting the most favourable offer, and the possibility of protecting the rights of interested partners. This is a procedure that simply does not exist in the Serbian legislation and is not possible. Representatives of the Government, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, the City of Belgrade, the State Attorney's Office and two state-owned companies, whose members participated in the procedure, failed to point out this illegality.

Because this contract, which was concluded based on a non-existent, illegal procedure, is absolutely null and void by the Law on Obligations, Transparency Serbia and the Coalition for Public Finance Supervision call on the Republic Public Prosecutor's Office to act on this initiative and file a lawsuit to determine the nullity of the concluded contract on the joint construction of the building of the railway station “Belgrade Center” (Prokop), parking and accompanying commercial facilities.