THEY FALSIFIED DOCUMENTS AND ENDANGERED CHILDREN: Five people arrested for the ceiling collapse in a school and the theft of 22 million dinars from the budget!

After the collapse of a ceiling in a classroom at the “Karađorđe” elementary school in Saranovo following renovation, an investigation revealed suspicions of falsified documentation, unfulfilled conditions for performing the work, and multi-million damage to the budget.

Almost a year after the ceiling collapsed at the “Karađorđe” Elementary School in Saranovo in the municipality of Rača, five people have been arrested on suspicion of committing several criminal offenses related to the reconstruction of the school building and damaging the Serbian budget by more than 21.8 million dinars.

Those arrested include M. G. (42) from Valjevo, the responsible person of the company MG Engineering DOO Valjevo, engaged in expert supervision of the work, as well as M. P. (69) from Kragujevac, employed at the company Sloga Construction DOO Belgrade, as the responsible contractor, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) announced.

Due to suspicion of abuse of position by a responsible person, B.P. (50) from Kragujevac, the responsible person of the company SKY gradnja 034 DOO Kragujevac, who participated in the works as a subcontractor, was also arrested, while J.M. (44) from Belgrade, the responsible person of the company Arkon projekt inženjering DOO Rača, and designer J.R. (30) from Belgrade are suspected of falsifying official documents in co-perpetration.

M. G. and B. P. were detained for up to 48 hours, while M. P., J. M., and J. R. will be brought to the competent prosecutor’s office along with a criminal complaint.

What happened

The action followed checks initiated due to the collapse of a suspended ceiling in a classroom of the school in April last year.

The school in the village of Saranovo near Rača, attended by about seventy students, was then the scene of an incident in which fortunately no one was killed.

The entire ceiling of one classroom collapsed. As “Vreme” wrote at the time, the school was allegedly renovated and put into operation in early 2025, although initially everything was supposed to be ready in September 2024, at the beginning of the school year.

Malpractice with documentation

It is suspected that M. G. and M. P., from March 2024 to April 2025, created construction site documentation with untrue content, even though they knew that the works were not performed in accordance with the contract, thereby enabling the acquisition of illegal property benefits for the contractor, MUP stated.

It is also suspected that B. P. performed the works even though he did not meet the prescribed personnel and technical conditions, which is why the works were not performed in the planned scope, type, and quality, but were paid for from the state budget.

J. M. and J. R. are charged with creating project documentation with untrue data, which presented an inaccurate as-built state of the facility, it was announced.

In this way, MUP states, illegal property benefit was obtained for the companies Sloga Construction and SKY gradnja 034 in the amount of 15,076,026 dinars excluding VAT, while the budget of Serbia was damaged by 21,872,147 dinars excluding VAT.