The Hercegnov Prosecutor's Office is checking the circumstances and conditions under which employees of the Water and Sewerage Department received loans eight years ago to improve housing conditions.
In 2008, the board of directors of that company made a decision to grant 54 employees loans in the amount of eight to 10.000 euros, with a three-year grace period in the total amount of about half a million euros.
The loan had to be repaid in five years, with an interest rate of three percent.
Although the repayment of the loan had to start in 2011, none of the signatories of the contract has paid a single cent to date.
The "Vijesti" source states that the workers were allegedly promised that they would not have to pay back that loan, because on the same day the Board of Directors also made a decision to grant non-refundable aid to the same number of workers in the amount of 10.000 euros each.
However, that decision was withdrawn.
All this happened during the local elections in Herceg Novi, so it is speculated that the coalition led by the SNP was trying to retain power in the largest city of Bokele, which it governed from 2000 until last year.
Relying on the promises, the workers who signed the loan contract acted as if it was a grant.
In the meantime, the former director of that public company, Zoran Šabanović, made an allegedly illegal decision, according to which users were obliged to repay the loan in monthly installments of 10 euros each.
That decision was not respected either.
This issue would most likely not have been raised by either the new or the old Board of Directors (in which decisions were made jointly by members who were from the SNP, but also from the DPS, which was then the opposition to the local government), or the management, if the issue had not been raised by the state audit.
Only after that, the Board of Directors informed the ODT in Herceg Novi about everything.
"The procedure is in the investigation phase, which is why we cannot provide you with more information," the prosecutor's office replied to "Vijesti".
Deep in debt, where did the money they "gifted" to the workers come from?
In previous years, the account of the Vodovod company was often blocked due to unpaid obligations for the consumed electricity, so Elektrodistribucija turned off the electricity to the pumping stations and other facilities of the Vodovod on several occasions, as a result of which the citizens were without water. On several occasions, the Municipality assumed the debt of Vodovod for transporting water from the Plat system across Croatian territory. Until a year ago, when the management was changed, workers' salaries were delayed for several months. This is why it is being determined where the half million euros that were "gifted" to the workers came from.
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