COMMENT: Thank you to CEOP

The accident in Novi Sad and the Prokop station have, unfortunately, become the best promoters of the building permit issuance system. With the collapse of the canopy, the term CEOP (Centralized Unified Procedure Registry) suddenly entered public discourse.

This acronym symbolizes the electronic system through which anyone wishing to build in Serbia can submit a request, and institutions can review, approve, or reject that request.

For both the expert public and the broader audience, including the media, CEOP has proven to be a powerful tool for monitoring compliance with regulations in this area.

If anyone starts building below your window tomorrow, you can check in CEOP with just a few clicks to find out who it is and, most importantly, whether they have the necessary permit.

Whatever the government does or builds, we can find out.

Eight Years

Many have only now learned about CEOP, although it has existed for a full eight years.

One of my colleagues, whose television appearance I watched, recently discovered in CEOP that the railway station in Novi Sad does not have an occupancy permit. He should be satisfied because he has a valuable tool at his disposal.

After watching that appearance, I felt a moral obligation and a human need to say: "Thank you, CEOP!"

And an even greater moral obligation and human need to add: "Thank you, NALED!"

I am completely biased in this story. I spent 11 years at NALED. I was an eyewitness to the creation of CEOP. In my field of work, I also contributed to what we have now. Today, I benefit greatly from it. Almost every day, I use CEOP.

I witnessed its inception. From the first trips by NALED members to North Macedonia to see how their CEOP works, to pulling on the sleeves of people from relevant institutions to persuade them to go and see it. To convincing them that something like this was needed in Serbia. I heard the protests from municipal officials against such a tectonic change.

Had it not been for NALED, we wouldn’t have CEOP today. The government didn’t have to create it.

Or we would have gotten it much, much later. NALED secured $400,000 in donor funding from the governments of Germany and Switzerland through GIZ to develop the software. They trained thousands of people in institutions and organizations involved in obtaining and issuing permits to use it.

The then responsible minister may roll her eyes many times, but this is the essence. She deserves her share of credit because it took political will to push something like this to the top of the government and get a decision. That was her political responsibility, and she fulfilled it.

Why This Matters

Why is all this important? Because the accident in Novi Sad reminds us that we must approach the entire situation responsibly. We cannot escalate tensions and casually throw around claims that something has been "removed" from CEOP if it hasn’t, or that the station in Belgrade doesn’t have an occupancy permit when it only applies to the station building (although this is still scandalous).

What Could Have Been Done Better

Similarly, as a society, we must stand behind good initiatives, even if we might not like who is proposing them. Because CEOP shows that something may be good in the short term for the government, but it is beneficial for all of us in the long run. Thanks to CEOP, today we can uncover all sorts of wrongdoings, even when the government is acting without a permit.

That’s why, as a society, we must support good initiatives and not automatically attack those who propose them or accuse them of collaborating with the government. If we had acted this way, today we might have, for example, a register of non-tax levies, and like with CEOP, we could easily find out whether an institution has increased fees or charges this morning.

I have also witnessed attacks on NALED’s efforts to introduce digital fiscalization, with some claiming it was an unnecessary cost. Others argued it would lead to the ruin of entrepreneurs. The latter didn’t happen, and the former is shaky at best.

The results in just the past few weeks are as follows – one in three dentists checked by the Tax Administration is not issuing fiscal receipts, half of hairdressing and beauty salons are doing the same, and, hold on, 72% of bakeries and pastry shops are doing the same. While some justify this by claiming the state shouldn’t be paid taxes, society must realize that this is theft. And these are not representative samples. The percentages are high because the Tax Administration, thanks to fiscalization, can target those deemed high-risk. That’s why so many violations have been uncovered. It’s up to us to ensure the Tax Administration uses this system even more effectively.

Then there’s the Public Procurement Portal, whose improvement was also helped by the aforementioned organization. It is a powerful tool for the media and the public to learn who is procuring what, and at what price. Who and why amends contracts after a procurement has been concluded, why there is only one bidder for high-profit projects, why those bidders are connected to certain people, etc.

Ten or twenty years ago, we had none or almost none of this. We were stumbling in the dark, especially journalists, waiting for someone to "whisper" that something was happening. Today, without CEOP, we wouldn’t even know what the building permit for the railway to Hungary looks like, or whether Prokop has an occupancy permit. We might have written requests for access to public information, but with uncertain results as to whether we would ever receive the documents. Today, the opposition can, and does, request information from CEOP and gather ammunition to highlight the government's (in)action. And they should.

But, because of my colleague, who probably still doesn’t know who created CEOP (but NALED knew how to "hook" him whenever possible), and because of all of us, I repeat the message: We must stand behind good initiatives. And we must defend what we have. Whether it’s CEOP, the Public Procurement Portal, the Business Register, the Cadastre, or any other database (in case someone gets the idea to lock them up due to excessive transparency that might harm the curious).

We already know that the government doesn’t like transparency. We just need to know what we want and how responsible we are as members of this society.

Author of the text: Ivan Radak

The source: Forbes Srbija