Serbia Replaces Cadastre Chief After 11 Years
Borko Draskovic was removed as director of the Republic Geodetic Authority after 11 years, and the Government named geodetic inspector Dalibor Babic as acting director.
On August 6, the Government of Serbia removed Borko Draskovic from his post as director of the Republic Geodetic Authority (RGZ), the institution that runs the real estate cadastre and keeps all official records of land and property ownership in Serbia. The same decision named Dalibor Babic, until then a geodetic inspector in the Authority’s Department for Supervision and Control, as acting director.
Draskovic had led the RGZ for 11 years. He took over as acting director in 2015, was appointed director in 2017, and was given a new term in 2022. His dismissal came before that five year term had expired, and without an official explanation of the reasons.
When the news broke, the director himself had not yet learned of it firsthand.
“We still haven’t received that information officially,”
Draskovic told N1, adding that he would not comment on the decision. “These are normal processes,” he said. His first reaction after the dismissal was just as brief: “You’re all calling as if this were some big deal,” he told reporters. Asked whether he knew why he had been removed after 11 years, he said that a day eventually comes when, after that much time, you get replaced, and when asked about the reasons, he said only that he does his job and had always done his job. He added that he expects to return to the private sector, where he had come from before entering public administration.
Who Is the New Man Leading the Cadastre
Babic was not brought in from outside. He had worked at the RGZ as a geodetic inspector in the Department for Supervision and Control, and is known to the public for frequent television appearances in which he spoke about what inspections find in the field and inside the cadastre’s own offices.
That is the only signal the Government’s decision carries. The Authority, which in recent years has been the target of complaints over deadlines and communication with clients, is not getting a chief from its management ranks but from the body that oversees its own work.
Years of Public Land Disputes
Draskovic’s term had been more visible in recent months than before, over a dispute the institution does not normally air in public. The RGZ clashed in public statements with Cajetina municipality president Milan Stamatovic over land in Zlatibor, and the argument was also carried out from the Authority’s official account on the X platform. Whether the dismissal is connected to that, no one from the Government has said. Draskovic neither confirmed nor denied the connection, repeating only that the institution had done its job.
Earlier, he had also been in an open dispute with then Minister of Construction Goran Vesic. Vesic announced that he would look into the cadastre and criticized the Authority for avoiding direct contact with citizens, communicating with them only online and through lawyers. The response came from the top of the institution, through the Geosindikat union, and was just as sharp toward the minister’s work. Draskovic remained in his post for a long time after that clash with a senior government official, which makes the dismissal now harder to explain through old disputes alone.
What Is Known About the Outgoing Director
Draskovic entered public administration after the change of government in 2013, as deputy director of the Directorate for Inland Waterways at the Ministry of Transport. Two years later he took over the cadastre.
According to his asset disclosure, he earned a salary of 315,000 dinars a month as director of the RGZ.
The Authority is now run by an acting director, and how long that lasts depends on when the Government calls and completes the selection of a director for a full term. Until then, one question remains open that the dismissal did not settle: whether only the man at the top is changing, or the way the cadastre works with citizens and municipalities.
