Bujanovac – Last year, the Coordination Body of the Government of the Republic of Serbia for the Municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja invested 230 million dinars in providing the preconditions for economic development of those municipalities.   The points at issue included mainly the solving of infrastructural problems, such as reconstruction and construction of the local roads, improvement in water and power supply, providing support to agriculture and the tidying up of the municipal centers. The government earmarked over 100 million dinars for strengthening the economy of Bujanovac, 92 million dinars for strengthening the economy of Presevo, while around 40 million dinars were invested in Medvedja.

Last year, the Ministry of NIP (National Investment Plan) also supported the projects in this region with almost 6.5 million dinars, out of which Medvedja received approximately 3.5 million dinars, while Presevo got around three million dinars. The Coordination Body pointed out that development of the local community centers in the said three municipalities was, last year, financed with 48 million dinars, which had been earmarked in the fund of the Ministry for Public Administration and Local Self-Government. For those purposes, Presevo and Bujanovac received 17 million dinars each, while Medvedja, mainly Sijarinska Spa, got 14 million dinars. Also, the Coordination Body provided over 200 scholarships to secondary school students, while all students of Nis University’s department in Medvedja, those that had enrolled in the second year of the studies, received from the Coordination Body 7,000 dinars each. The poorest residents of each of the said three municipalities received two million dinars.

Anyway, over the past ten years, which is the period over which the Coordination Body has been operating, the government invested five billion dinars or almost 70 million euro in the municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja. The municipality of Bujanovac was receiving in that period the average of one half of its annual budget, the Presevo amount was equal to one third of the Presevo municipality’s budget, while Medvedja was receiving twice more funds compared to the Medvedja municipality’s budget.  Modern roads were built all over the region and schools and modern green markets were constructed. Also, Sijarinska Spa, from the earnings of which the entire Medvedja region depends, was trimmed up. Over the past ten years, every Presevo resident received from the government around 530 euro, every Bujanovac resident received the same amount, while every Medvedja resident received over two thousand euro from the government.