More than 8.700 days have passed since that historic (or, by God, historic) January 1989, when this government sat on the throne. And he is still sitting, and it looks like he will be sitting for a long time.
For a total of almost 9 kilometers of days, the lost GDP of Montenegro, if we take the initial year of rule as a basis, is so much that with those money a highway could be built along and across our beloved homeland, and also to honor the Croats, Serbs and Albanians with 50 km of six-lane road, so that moldy car tires do not enter our ecological country. Now we are struggling with how to make one half of one quarter of the longitudinal highway.
We cannot return what was lost. But do we have to keep losing, and for how long?
The Minister of Transport and Maritime Affairs, until yesterday the head of internal law and order, no matter how much he sat down in his new chair, he immediately went to work on the highway and the fun for the people started again. Every evening there is a report from the "road trip" where the highwaymen went, what was discussed and with whom, with the animation of the new jazz, almost live. We, who trust everything in the Public Service, secretly ask at which junction the turn for Boljare is, out of sheer fear that someone will break into our lack of information.
I don't know the responsible minister of transport in the Government of Montenegro, so I don't even know what recommendations led him to do such a responsible job. But I guess the one who posted it knows. I expected that the minister, the other ministers and the entire government would have to draw up a work program for the mandate period at the beginning of the mandate, and that someone would approve that program. It was logical for the Minister of Transport to "tidy up the house" a bit at the very beginning, and there was something. For example, by decree to integrate the former Port of Bar, as well as the former Railway of Montenegro, into unified economic companies, as they have always been, because they are unique, indivisible systems, spatially, organizationally and economically. They were torn apart by decree, without expert consideration of the consequences, with damages in every sense, so that "members exhale in agony". Even the OOUR-affiliated ŽTO and Luka were really much better, because they are at the level of SOUR, yet coordinated and jointly planned. Now the "divided brothers" are bitter opponents.
Stop the process of selling the part of the Port of Bar, which is now called KTGT, which, look at the absurdity, has nothing to do with the port even in the name, because even now, when the same language is still spoken, the divided port cannot come to an agreement, but it can compete with each other for its damage. How will it be when (if) foreigners come. By the way, the sale of KTGT for small money (privatization), and the purchase of state cargo ships for big money, is associated with the "host" who sells the barn and buys cows, which he gives to others to keep. It can't turn out well. Also, the minister had to notice, or someone should have told him about the illogicality and harmfulness of the Law on Ports, at least in the part of the Port Authority, and return the tasks entrusted to that authority to the Port of Bar, integrated or at least to the existing one.
He should also have reviewed the contracts by which we sold valuable companies registered in traffic for small sums, which are generally much worse than on the day of the sale. Only in Bar there are several of them.
So, there was something useful to do even without the highway. But the minister "goes to safety". When (if) he is asked what he does, he always has the answer: I build a highway. As far as I know, Montenegro has two specialized and purpose-built institutions for this work: Monte-put and the Directorate for Roads. I know about one (Monte-put), and I assume that they are capable of realizing that investment idea, if it is at all possible in these economic conditions of Montenegro. No one asks them, or they are forbidden to say anything.
The highway is a very "expensive toy". It is the value equivalent of everything that the whole of Montenegro creates in a year, from collected medicinal plants to aluminum ingots. It is the state's eight-year pension fund (it occurs to me that there is a chance), which, admittedly, has been spent in advance. On the basis of which and whose decision, on the basis of which authority, on the basis of which constitutional provisions, the Ministry, the Government and even the Assembly want to owe us such a large amount of money. What are the effects, direct and indirect, that the investment will pay off, or that the loans will be returned. The existing economy cannot repay its own and state debts. The average salary is slightly higher than half of the consumer basket, and the average pension is three times less. Much more than half of Montenegrin families have less than two average salaries, and many live on one pension. In order to return the due obligations, Montenegro is now selling what little is left of attractive space, other natural resources and still unsold companies, we are introducing new duties (taxes, VAT increase), printing new bonds and taking new loans. Not a single euro was spent on development, at least not the development that will generate profit tomorrow.
The highway in Montenegro is not considered technically, functionally, financially and economically. The current explanations and rationales surrounding its construction are pure voluntarism, inappropriate for the time and situation when all this is happening. It was torn out of the context of the overall possible development of the country, and the Government seems to want to simplify the construction in terms of the scope of the significant investment according to the principle of "take it or leave it", "auto-road or nothing", and then a new division in Montenegro who is in favor , and who is against its construction. That's why I suggest that in the next six months, stop any talk about the construction of the highway, as well as other investments that have strategic importance, and adopt (the Assembly) the Development Plan of Montenegro. The Constitution of Montenegro obliges to do so. We don't need a government that doesn't know that, or won't do it. The Assembly also has no right to make strategic decisions without a development plan.
Far from it, this is what the brilliant Yugoslav economist Branko Horvat (American proposal for the Nobel Prize for economics in 1983, shortlisted - Wikipedia) wrote in his book "What kind of country do we have and what kind of country do we need?" (Zagreb, 2002) wrote about the government of his native Croatia.
"Does the government have an economic strategy? Obviously there is. Once upon a time, this was called a laissez-faire economy. About a hundred years ago, the American economist Veblen called it predatory capitalism. In recent decades, international capital has been treating it as neoliberalism. A few years ago George Soros gave it an adequate name: market fundamentalism''... ”The reason for the government's market fundamentalism is that it deprives it of responsibility for the economy, so it can devote itself completely to party brokering. That is why it is not in the government's interest to have a national program and to deal with national economic planning. That would only create new obligations that he does not know, does not want and cannot fulfill. Under such conditions, everything is left to the elements of the market. There is no economic development planning, even if it would specify national economic goals and significantly reduce the riskiness of business. There is no policy of investing and creating new jobs..."
What to add and what to take away without spoiling it?
By definition, preparation (planning) is half the job. If we spend half a year on strategic planning, studies and design, we will know what needs to be done, and we will do what we decide needs to be done much faster and more efficiently. Even the highway if, in sports terms, it qualifies as a priority.
Bonus video:
