Belgrade Fair: 59 Employees Demand Probe Over Their Data
According to a statement, names of Fair workers appeared in decisions appointing polling board members in Rakovica without their knowledge. The acting director has not answered questions.
A group of 59 of the roughly 200 employees of the Belgrade Fair company issued a statement on November 9 claiming that their personal data, including their personal ID numbers (JMBG), was used without their knowledge when polling board members were appointed for the snap parliamentary elections on October 25. They are asking Fair management and the competent institutions for a “urgent and transparent investigation.”
Everything below comes from the employees’ statement. No independent verification of the claims has been published.
What do the employees say about the Republic Electoral Commission decisions?
According to the statement, the decisions appointing polling board members, published on the website of the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK), show that some Fair workers were appointed as board members in the Belgrade municipality of Rakovica. The employees say the nominating parties were political organizations close to the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). The statement does not name them.
The group’s demand reads:
“from the management of the Belgrade Fair and all competent institutions, that an investigation be carried out urgently and transparently into how their personal data ended up, without their knowledge, in the Decisions appointing polling board members, at the proposal of political organizations close to the SNS”
The same statement goes on:
“The decisions appointing polling board members, published on the official RIK website, show that some workers of Belgrade Fair d.o.o. were appointed polling board members in the municipality of Rakovica. The nominating parties listed for these workers are political organizations close to the SNS. Employees of the Belgrade Fair were assigned to 13 polling stations in Rakovica without ever being informed of the proposals or giving consent to anyone delegating them. The employees express justified concern and demand an urgent determination of how their personal data, including JMBG, was obtained, as well as answers to who used it further and for what purposes. Acting director Nikola Bankovic held a meeting with the employees and on that occasion said it would be established who is responsible for the situation. Despite that, no independent check has been launched to date, nor has it been clarified who obtained the personal data and how, and who passed it on, or whether employees within the company itself or some other persons are responsible.”
The statement was signed by 59 people, which is not the same as the number of workers whose names appear in the decisions. The statement, as relayed, does not give that exact figure. The daily Danas, in its questions to management, mentions that “more than a quarter of employees” turned up in the decisions, but that is a claim contained in a question, not an established fact.
What does Fair management say?
According to the statement, acting director Nikola Bankovic told employees at a meeting that it would be determined who is responsible. He did not answer Danas’s questions about the statement, nor the question of what has been done in response to the allegations that workers were appointed without consent.
Warning from the former finance director
The statement followed a public warning from the Fair’s former finance director Slobodan Tesic, who said:
“The Fair is heading for collapse because of poor management, party-based hiring and an enormous increase in security and cleaning costs.”
Tesic also claims that since the October 25 elections, loyalists of the SNS have been promoted en masse at the Fair, and that the management is steering the company toward shutting down the Fair at its current location, Kod Sest Topola (Six Poplars). At the beginning of August, that site was entered as real estate into the founding capital of the newly established Serbian government company SAVA PROPERTIS 2026 d.o.o. Beograd, at an estimated value of about 116.5 million euros. Bankovic did not respond to Tesic’s allegations either.
Danas also asked whether the election result and the formation of a new government could halt the planned conversion of the Fair’s grounds into the “Belgrade Waterfront” project, and what the Fair’s connection is to Expo 2027, announced for May 15 to August 15 next year in Surcin. No answer to those questions has arrived.
