Former workers of the bankrupt “Zastava Trucks” factory on Wednesday, November 16, will be paid a part of their salary debt by paying funds from the rebalancing of the city budget, which allocated almost 79 million dinars, it was announced today.

As Milojko Popović, a representative of the former employees of “Zastava Kamikona” told the Beta agency, 307 former employees will manage to collect about 70.8 percent of their recognized claims in this way, while there will still be an outstanding debt of about 40 million. The former workers of “Zastava Trucks” could not settle their salary debt through bankruptcy, since the estimated value of the factory is much lower than the debt owed to creditors.

In the budget, the City of Kragujevac allocated funds for the claims of the employees of that company by the decision of the Assembly of November 4, acting on the conclusion of the Government of Serbia to cede its claims from the truck factory to them.

Popović said that since Monday, November 7, workers at “Zastava Trucks” have started signing statements that their claims in the bankruptcy proceedings will be reduced by the amount that will be paid to them by the city of Kragujevac.

He reminded that the workers previously waived interest on their claims, but that they will not waive the remaining debt of about 40 million dinars and will continue negotiations with the state.

The workers of “Zastava truck” have been fighting for unpaid claims for years through numerous protests and negotiations with representatives of the City of Kragujevac and the Government of Serbia.

Until now, the state has paid three one-time social benefits to former workers, one of 40,000 dinars and two of 50,000 dinars each.