HEAVY ACCUSATIONS BY FORMER BIOSENS DIRECTOR: “Minister Glamočić is Trying to Systematically Destroy the Institute, He Wanted to Manage the Money We Received from the EU”

The BioSense Institute in Novi Sad, founded 10 years ago, has come under fire from the government. According to recently dismissed director Vladimir Crnojević, the government wants to abolish the current funding system and the digital platform for granting subsidies so they can control the flow of money and hire personnel loyal to the regime.

According to Vladimir Crnojević, the province has launched an attack on the institution, with Minister of Agriculture Dragan Glamočić being the most prominent figure.

Because of the new members of the Supervisory Board, delegated by the Province, who voted to dismiss Crnojević in an electronic session, the institute’s employees have been on strike for weeks. They have also filed a lawsuit with the Administrative Court against the appointment of “incompetent people to the Supervisory Board.”

Although the Institute was founded thanks to Crnojević’s vision, the Province decided to remove him. It all started with projects that bring in large sums of money that the government cannot control or use.

“This society does not forgive success, and everything that is done correctly, well, and usefully seems to have to be torn down. The chaos started with Glamočić, the current Minister of Agriculture. Until a few years ago, he was the president of the Supervisory Board and tried to manage the finances we received from Europe for important projects. When perhaps the most important project for Serbian agriculture, the eAgrar digital platform, was created, the government realized it couldn’t maneuver with the funds that are transferred electronically. The largest part of Serbia’s budget for agriculture, even one and a half billion euros, is transferred through this platform. The platform works like a clock, but the problem for the SNS is that everything done on it leaves a digital trace, so funds cannot be manipulated. When he was given the mandate, Glamočić immediately stated that the digitalization process was rushed, alluding to this platform. His biggest problem was the manipulation of subsidies,” Crnojević told Nova.rs.

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“They Want to Get Rid of eAgrar”

“It happens that, for example, you have a grant, a tractor donation, and the criterion on the platform works on a first-come, first-served basis. The first person to apply is immediately registered, and there is no room for fraud; nothing can be rigged. However, they used to ‘pigeonhole’ the first applicant and give the grant to one of their own people, then deal with the lawsuits later, but they didn’t care. That was one of the main reasons they wanted to remove me, so they could easily abolish eAgrar,” Crnojević emphasized.

After dismissing Crnojević, the Province appointed a new acting director, Dušan Marinković.

“The problem with his appointment is a question of competence. There are criteria for selecting and appointing a director. It’s required to have experience in international projects and speak languages, but the documentation he submitted shows that he has only completed a few projects, and they were all local, rigged with the Province, and on the topic of mosquito spraying. Now they call him ‘Dule Raid’ and ‘Dule Autan’ at the Institute. They have made a circus out of a serious institution with the new director and Supervisory Board members, but they will certainly do everything I refused to agree to. What is currently happening is the deep-seated destruction of something that was built for 10 years. We have informed the European Commission about everything because the essence is that the BioSense Institute is the first scientific institute built in Serbia in 40 years, and for its needs, it was the first building of scientific research infrastructure in such a long time. In terms of administrative and financial functioning, the Institute was brought to perfection, and we passed all audits by European institutions. We paved the way for others, and now they want to destroy us. The Province is buying time because this team won’t be here much longer, but the damage they will cause will be immeasurable,” Crnojević warns.

Crnojević Refused to Send Employees to a Rally

Although they are now under government attack, former Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, who is at the top of the ruling SNS, previously protected the Institute.

“That happened up to a point. Brnabić strongly supported us. She was a proponent of digitalization, she spread optimism, and at one point, she even got Glamočić off our backs. I don’t know what happened now,” says the former BioSense director.

As a reminder, Vladimir Crnojević was removed from the position of director of the BioSense Institute on August 7 of this year in an electronic session of the new Supervisory Board, whose members were banned from entering the building and were elected by the Province. The official reason for the dismissal was not communicated to Crnojević. According to him, the order for his removal came after he refused to send 30 people from the institute to an SNS rally that had been announced for March 28 in Novi Sad.

In the last six months, the Province has changed the members of the Supervisory Board several times because, as Crnojević says, no one wanted to vote for his dismissal.

“The decision to remove me was made by the Province, and it came after I got a yellow ribbon as a ‘blockader.’ What bothers them is that at the Institute, out of 200 employees, no one got a job through a political party. The Institute employs serious experts. We work for NASA, the World Bank, and the biggest global companies. We have 100 PhDs, and at one point, the government expected me to ‘train’ these people, to figuratively break their backs, so they would know who is ‘ours and who is theirs.’ I was sent a request that I had to bring 30 people to an SNS rally, which was announced for March 28, even though they know that our colleague was killed under a canopy on November 1. I refused this order; I told them I wouldn’t do it, and that’s probably when the decision to remove me was made,” Crnojević concluded.