A 11 Initiative Requested Information about the Inspections of the Construction Site of the Linglong Factory in Zrenjanin

In January 2022, A 11 Initiative sent a request to the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure for access to public information, demanding the submission of reports in relation to all regular and extraordinary inspections of the operations of the following companies: Shandong Linglong Tire Co. Ltd, Linglong International Europe Ltd. Zrenjanin, Sichuan Dinglong Electric Power Engineering Co. Ltd Zrenjanin Branch and China Energy Engineering Group Tianjin Electric Power Construction Co. Ltd Belgrade Branch, conducted by the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure independently or in cooperation with other Ministries and authorities under their jurisdiction.

The reason for this request was the previous assertion of the Minister Tomislav Momirović, published on the website of the ministry, stating that thirty regular and twenty extraordinary inspections have been carried out on the construction site of the future Linglong factory in Zrenjanin, and that it has been established that this construction site is “the most supervised construction site in the Republic of Serbia” and that “no major irregularities have been identified in the work done so far”.

A 11 Initiative submitted the same request for access to information of public importance to the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans and Social Issues in November 2021, immediately after the publication of information about the position of workers employed on this construction site, in order to determine whether regular or extraordinary inspections were carried out promptly after finding out about the position of the workers; however, the Ministry has not yet sent an official response to this request.

The request for access to information of public importance demanding the submission of decisions and reports in connection with all regular and extraordinary inspections of the above companies conducted by the Department for Emergency Situations and the Office for the Coordination of Activities in Combating Human Trafficking of the Ministry of Internal Affairs independently or in cooperation with other Ministries and authorities under their jurisdiction, was also sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In an official letter, the Ministry informed A 11 Initiative that it received the above request on November 30 and that the Department for Emergency Situations will act upon the request within 40 days; however, to date, the response of the Ministry of Internal Affairs has not arrived.

We would like to remind you that in November, information was disclosed that according to the labor inspection reports in relation to the Linglong construction site in Zrenjanin, 18 inspections were carried out in the field of labor relations, safety and occupational safety by the labor inspectors of the Zrenjanin Labor Inspection Department in the period from June 19, 2020, to November 15, 2021, but there is no official and publicly available document thereof.

Photo by Sara Nikolić