Action for social justice: Prosecutor's Office to get involved in the case of KAP and EPCG

The Prosecutor's Office should most urgently get involved in the case of the Aluminum Plant (KAP) and Elektroprivreda and determine whether there are elements of the criminal offense of abuse of position in business operations in the existing electricity purchase agreement, Action for Social Justice believes.

The representative of that non-governmental organization (NGO), Ines Mrdović, said that it is necessary to determine this, bearing in mind that there was damage of at least 60 million euros for EPCG.

The management of EPCG recently stated that amount as direct damage due to this year's price for KAP of 45 euros per megawatt of electricity, because in the meantime the price has increased several times on the market.

"The real damage is possibly even greater, since in recent days the price has reached an unbelievable over 300 euros per megawatt, so it is simply incomprehensible that the contractual arrangement on the sale of electricity to KAP did not have a protective clause for EPCG in the event of enormous market jumps in the price of energy." Mrdović stated in the announcement.

Therefore, in the opinion of the prosecution, it is necessary to determine all the elements of the contractual arrangement in the context of good business practices, i.e. whether there was an abuse of position in business operations, which resulted in enormous damage to the state company, while the private company was enabled to profit

"The case of KAP, which is privately owned, has been in the spotlight of the domestic public for the last few weeks, after the announcement of its shutdown due to the high price of electricity, and the request of the private owner to approve a subsidized price or the state to take over its management for a year," Mrdović said. .

As she said, the Government also got involved in the whole story, which two days ago adopted appropriate conclusions regarding KAP, but it is incredible that it adopts "oral information" about the continuation of negotiations between EPCG and the private owner of KAP, while not citing no legal basis, which she uses to get involved in the whole case, nor did she disclose any details from the "verbal information".

"We are witnessing this practice of verbal agreements about KAP after a full eight and a half years, because in the middle of 2013, the then Government decided on the fate of the factory with "oral information", Mrdović stated.

She reminded that bankruptcy was introduced in the factory that year, and after a controversial procedure, the property was sold to Uniprom. Citizens well remembered that the land was sold at a grossly undervalued price of 11 euros per square meter, which is practically a gift, not a sale.

"Therefore, when the government's highest officials say today that the stolen property should be returned to the state, citing as an example the Solana from Ulcinj, they should apply the same attitude towards KAP, i.e. it is a higher priority to insist on the review of that bankruptcy procedure, and not on giving the "green light "to enable its owner to receive new subsidies", stated Mrdović.

According to her, if there is a public interest in granting state aid to a private company, then it must be carried out according to a clearly prescribed legal procedure, because the Government's conclusions cannot have greater legal force than the laws of this country, and this Government must be crystal clear.

"Also, the public interest must be proven, and it is not the interest of an individual private owner, nor several hundred employees of a private company, but rather the overall, common interest of every single citizen of this country, to whom "letters and numbers" must be shown and to prove why all of them would help the private company KAP and its workers", concluded Mrdović.