Ministry of Economy: We follow the activities of the competent authorities of Malta with special care

Any and the remotest doubt about, even indirect, links of Montenegrin development projects with serious criminal acts, makes us follow the activities of the competent authorities of Malta, as well as the mechanisms of international cooperation, with special attention, and we eagerly await the establishment of the facts and the satisfaction of justice.

This was announced by the Ministry of Economy due to what they cited as increasingly frequent "daily political abuses of the investigation of a serious criminal offense committed in Malta".

"It is with the most sincere regret that we received the news of the death of the investigative journalist from Malta, Mrs. Dafna Karuna Galicija. The Ministry of Economy and the Government of Montenegro are fully at the disposal of the competent Montenegrin institutions in this sense (with a reminder that all documentation has already been handed over to the SDT) and international partners," the Ministry of Economy announced.

We are transmitting the rest of the announcement in its entirety

"Regarding the increasingly frequent, until recently unimaginable for Montenegrin society, daily political abuses of the investigation of a serious criminal offense committed in Malta, the Ministry of Economy provides an overview of the key steps in the implementation of the Možura Wind Power Plant construction project, in which it participated on behalf of the Government of Montenegro.

- In 2009, a public international tender was announced for the leasing of state land for the construction of the Možur hydropower plant. The invitation, in accordance with the then practice of encouraging the construction of green energy sources, of almost all members of the European Union, guaranteed a purchase price of €95,99/MWh. This price then and years later, according to all relevant sources, fully corresponded to the production price from these energy sources, which guarantees a reasonable return on invested funds and was the starting point for market competition in the amount of the lease price of state land;

- The documentation was purchased by seven companies, and after the public opening and evaluation of bids, the contract was awarded to the Fersa-Čelebić consortium, whose leader was the renowned Spanish company Fersa;

- Due to the complexity of the project, which involved implementation according to the so-called The DBOT model, which transfers to the investor the complete site risk in terms of wind availability, design risks, securing finances, construction, and later maintenance of the facility, unfortunately for both contracting parties, there were delays in implementation;

- Internal decisions and a strategic change in the approach of the consortium leader conditioned his final decision to look for a partner to whom he would hand over the implementation of the project, which is a common worldwide practice for complex projects with multi-year implementation dynamics;

- From the very beginning of the initiative to transfer the contract, Montenegrin institutions insisted on the protection of the public interest, which was primarily reflected in the need for the project to be implemented, that delays in implementation, which were not influenced by the Montenegrin side, do not affect Montenegrin rights from the contract, and that the implementation of the project can only be transferred to a partner with the same or better references than the one to whom it was awarded in the tender;

- At the beginning of 2015, the Ministry was approached with a request for the transfer of the contract by the consortium Fersa-Čelebić and the majority state electricity company from another EU member state - Enemalta, which is 66% owned by the state of Malta, and 33% owned by the Chinese company SEIP, a subsidiary of China Power Investments, whose rating is rated AAA.

- After a comprehensive analysis and assessment that all stated conditions have been met, the transfer of the contract to a new tenant is allowed. The decision was formalized by an agreement on the transfer of contracts between the Ministry of Economy, Enemalta, the Fersa-Čelebić consortium and the project company Možura Wind Park, owned by the aforementioned consortium.

- The contract foresees the transfer of rights and obligations from the Fersa-Čelebić consortium to Enemalt, within 60 days from the date of conclusion and the corresponding change of ownership from the then owner to the new one. An extract from the Central Register of First-Class Entities, on the day of the expiration of the contractual term for the transfer, stated that the share was transferred to the new contractual tenant - Enemalta.

- At the end of 2016, the inclusion of another Maltese company - MMWP, majority-owned by the Chinese company SEIP, was allowed to take over a share in the project company, whereby Enemalta retained full joint and several responsibility for the realization of the project, which additionally ensured the protection of Montenegrin interests in the project.

- The correctness of the decisions on transferring the contract was confirmed by the fact that two years later this effort bore fruit and Montenegro got a new production facility, and all unjustified delays in the project were transferred to the investor.

- The project made it possible to increase electricity production by about 4%, it implies an annual subsidy in the amount of about 5 million euros over 12 years, or a total of about 60 million euros, after which the power plant worth 87 million euros will be completely reconstructed and handed over permanently owned by Montenegro. The entire amount of the subsidy, which permanently eliminated the import of this amount of energy, is only 7% of the funds that Montenegro irretrievably lost through energy imports in the past 20 years.

In order to eliminate all doubts, which are being constructed to establish a connection between Montenegrin institutions and the overall energy policy with alleged corruption scandals in Malta, Spain, Montenegro and phased offshore destinations, we particularly emphasize:

The Ministry of Economy was not in possession of any information about the alleged participation of the offshore companies Black 17 and Cifidex in the transfer of shares from the former to the new tenant, nor did it ever come into contact with them, much less conclude any contracts," the Ministry announced. economy.