26.02.2016.

Marking the Defence Inspectorate Day

In the Crystal Hall of the House of Guards in Topcider today, the Defence Inspectorate Day has been officially marked. The ceremony was attended by State Secretary at the Ministry of Defence Zoran Djordjevic, members of the collegium of the Minister of Defence, Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces General Ljubisa Dikovic with members of his collegium, as well as active and retired members of the Defence Inspectorate.

Congratulating on the holiday, State Secretary Djordjevic pointed out that the decades-long development of the inspection bodies talks only about the need for carrying out the inspection tasks in the defence system.

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The Defence Inspectorate today is a young administrative body, as defined by the law on ministries, which was adopted according to the present structure in May 2011, and completed in 2015 with normative legal framework. Today's Defence Inspectorate is very important, because it supervises not only the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces, but also other public administration bodies, state agencies, local governments and large technical systems that are of importance for the defence of the country – State Secretary Djordjevic pointed out.

As he underlined, only during the past year more than 100 inspections were carried out, and by providing information on the status of the defence system and proposing appropriate measures, the gaps and weaknesses in the work of the supervised entities were reduced which provided a significant contribution to the improvement of operational and functional capabilities for protecting the defence resources.

Recalling the historical significance of today's holiday, Director of the Defence Inspectorate Major General Mr. Goran Radovanovic said that it has been more than a century since the inspection work in the defence affairs, which is performed today by the Defence Inspectorate, has been recognised by the intellectual people and the statesmen as particularly significant, and organisationally separated.

- The mere harmonization of the procedures with the requirements of the regulations, as well as formalistic approach always and everywhere, without understanding of the objective, meaning and context of the impact of the current situation and the measures imposed on the further processing of the material entities does not keep its purpose. It must ensure that the measures imposed are proportionate to the risks and that the aimed state of things is reasonably sustainable in order to strengthen all indicators in the field of inspection oversight – General Radovanovic said, adding that this is why judgment and the correct application of the powers and discretion assessments by inspections teams imply expertise, knowledge, high professional awareness and responsibility of the members of the Defence Inspectorate.

In the follow-up of today's ceremony, General Radovanovic presented a Plaque of the Defence Inspectorate to General Dikovic in recognition of the long-term contribution of the Serbian Armed Forces General Staff to the development of this institution, while former directors of the Inspectorate were awarded letters of gratitude for their contribution to its development.

The Defence Inspectorate continues the tradition of inspection bodies established in the Kingdom of Serbia, and this year it is for the first time that it marks its Day, to commemorate the year 1911 when the General Inspection for the entire armed forces was formed by the decree of King Petar Karadjordjevic.