MANS: The Ministry of Capital Investments succeeded in "pushing" Tsarević's tender

The Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector (MANS) announced that the Government "despite the opposition of the locals and the Municipality of Kotor, but also the obvious violation of the legal procedure, still gave the green light to the Ministry of Capital Investments (MKI) to continue with this procedure".

"Thus, the MKI finally got a free hand to carry out a public call that openly favors the company "Carinvest", the existing concessionaire at that location, and allows the president of the Budva municipality, Marko Carević, to continue exploiting stone in Krimovica for another 30 years. All that what has happened in the last year points to the suspicion of an informal agreement between Tsarević and MKI, the implementation of which began in January of last year, when "Carinvest" officially sent an initiative to draft a new concession act, which would actually extend the existing concession of Tsarević for another 30 year", according to the announcement of MANS.

Although, as it is added, later Minister Mladen Bojanić and the MKI denied that the initiative for the new contract came from Tsarević, "the information about this is unequivocally contained in the version of the concession document that the Government of Montenegro adopted at yesterday's session".

"The document also contains data that in the preparation of the concession deed, the MKI used the data provided by Carinvest, which, if the law is fully respected, would disqualify the Tsarević company from participating in the tender. The MKI and Bojanić have not yet commented on the issue this obvious conflict of interest, as well as other problematic items in the concession document that openly favor the president of the Budva municipality. One of them is the fact that, in addition to the state plots, the MKI offers several plots in an "open, transparent and non-discriminatory" public tender that belong to the Tsarevićs. This certainly ensures that the Tsarevićs will come out as winners in this tender, even if they do not receive a concession".

MANS stated in the press release that they previously warned the MKI and the Government that after 15 years of stone exploitation in Krimovica, it is necessary to make a serious analysis of the implementation of the contract with Tsarević, an assessment of the impact on the environment, an ecological remediation plan, as well as to answer questions in connection with the conflict of interest and the fact that MKI also offers the private plots of Tsarević under concession.

"All those questions, including the one sent to Minister Bojanić about the motives for trying to secure a concession for Tsarević at any cost, unfortunately remained unanswered. MANS warned the Government of Montenegro last year that such agreements with tycoons like Tsarević represent a continuation of the practice that we had the opportunity to see in the last thirty years of the rule of the previous regime and that it is unacceptable for the MKI and Minister Bojanić to make compromises in this way at the expense of the interests of citizens and the rule of law. Yesterday's adoption of the aforementioned concession act represents a kind of answer to the question of whether they are To the Government of Montenegro and the Ministry of Capital Investments, the public interest and respect for the law is more important, or the profit interest of Marko Tsarević to significantly increase his wealth with another illegal business," concludes the statement of MANS.