Former Minister of Agriculture and current DPS MP Petar Ivanović opened a special account in Prva banka, which received two tranches of loans from the Abu Dhabi Fund in the total amount of 29,6 million dollars, bypassing the state treasury.
Ivanović, who is the current advisor to the President of the State, Milo Đukanović, sent the letter to Prva Banka on August 3, 2015, and it was addressed to the then Executive Director of Prva Banka, Darko Radunović, who was the Minister of Finance in the former Government of Prime Minister Duško Marković. "Vijesti" has access to that memo.
"I am asking you to open a special account for the implementation of Abu Dhabi to Montenegro Agricultural Support (ADMAS), which the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development implements in cooperation with the Development Fund of Abu Dhabi and the Investment and Development Fund of Montenegro (IRF), which will be managed by Petar Ivanović, Minister of agriculture and rural development and Blagota Radulović, general director of the Directorate for IPARD Payments" is stated in the memo with the indication that the account is labeled "ADMAS Project".
In a special account in the First Bank, outside the system of the state treasury (Ministry of Finance) of 50 million dollars of loans, for which a state guarantee was given, 2015 million dollars were deposited in 15, and 2017 million dollars in 14,6.
This was officially announced by the Minister of Agriculture, Aleksandar Stijović. Stijović obtained the data, as he said, after the secrecy mark was removed from part of the documents related to the ADMAS project and he handed everything over to the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT) to determine whether there are elements for expanding the investigation.
When the first tranche of money was paid into the account at Prva Banka, the current governor of the Central Bank, Radoje Žugić, was the Minister of Finance, and when the second tranche of money was paid in 2017, the Minister of Finance was Darko Radunović. At the end of 2016, he replaced Žugić in that position, who was elected governor in the fall of that year.
Stijović said that for the first tranche of money, they have no information about who gave the order for that payment, while the order for the second tranche was given by the former Minister of Agriculture and the current president of the Municipality of Nikšić, Milutin Simović.
Stijović announced that they have to ask the creditors from Abu Dhabi for a guarantee since it is not in the state treasury, and that they do not know its content and what the state's obligations are.
This guarantee is secured by additional collateral, which Žugić officially announced at a press conference in October 2014 when the Government approved the budget proposal for 2015 and when he announced that this guarantee would be issued.
"We have approved several new guarantees and what guided the Government and us in the Ministry of Finance is, I emphasize clearly, that we will only give sustainable guarantees that will not have the risk of falling under the burden of the budget, so we amended the article of the draft law on the budget that for each given guarantee it is necessary to provide collateral. It is a little banking, but from the aspect of security and those positions that concern the given guarantees, it is certainly a lower degree of risk and a lower level of vulnerability of public finances. One guarantee is related to agricultural value, and there we have found room to strengthen and increase employment and capacities, but even on this basis, the given guarantee entails adequate collateral of a given level, which will reduce the risk of falling on the budget," said Žugić, without specifying the details. in connection with the collateral.
SDT has declared the investigation in connection with this case a secret, which is why it cannot talk about further proceedings, i.e. whether it will hear Žugić and the President of the Municipality of Nikšić, i.e. former Minister of Agriculture Milutin Simović, who gave the order for the payment of the second tranche of the loan, while for he does not know who approved the first one. Stijović announced that Žugić's signature was on the translated loan and credit agreements, while the original English version contained the signature of former IRF director Zoran Vukčević. Ivanovic is mentioned in the contracts as a witness. The first bank is controlled by Aco Đukanović, the brother of the president. Žugić was previously on the audit committee of Prva banka.
Žugić, Simović and Ivanović claim that they worked legally.
In this investigation, the SDT questioned Ivanović and Vukčević on the suspicion that they abused their official position, and that they allowed the improper distribution and spending of loan money from the Abu Dhabi Fund. Due to the suspicion that they committed a criminal offense - negligent work in the service, former Minister of Agriculture in the transitional government in 2016 Budimir Mugoša and appraiser Milan Adžić, whose report on the company's pledges was included in several disputed cases, also testified in the SDT.
On the second day of the investigation, special prosecutor Stojanka Radović heard Dragan Brković, the owner of the company "Vektra", Ljub Perišić, whose company "Eko Per" from Šavnik bottles the "diva" water, and businessmen Krsto Knežević, Džemal Škrijelj and Vladimir Kujundžić. They are suspected of illegally spending money that their companies received from loans from the Abu Dhabi Fund.
SDT sent a request to the Assembly to remove Ivanovic's immunity.
In the data from the budget for 2015, it is written that the state will issue 101,6 million euros in guarantees, of which 50 million euros are for the project of the Investment and Development Fund with the Abu Dhabi Development Fund for the ADMAS project.
In the final account of the budget for that year, the payment of the first tranche of 15 million dollars is not mentioned anywhere, and in the audit of the final account, which was done by the State Audit Institution (DRI), there is no information that it was issued in the report on guarantees. The situation is the same with the audit of the final account for 2017, where there is no payment of 14,6 million dollars.
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