ASP: Citizens paid 81 million euros in subsidies for MHE and VE

Companies that manage small hydroelectric and wind power plants have received 81 million euros in subsidies for the electricity produced in them in the past seven years, the Action for Social Justice (ASP) announced, whose representatives do not expect the levy to be abolished soon.

The ASP said that companies that manage small hydroelectric power plants (mHE) and wind power plants (VE) received subsidies thanks to legal privileges established by the former governments of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), which "forced" consumers to pay them.

"It is generally known that in this business privileged companies and individuals close to the top of the DPS, but also relatives of that party top, while foreign ownership in VE Krnovo and Možura is hidden, so citizens still do not know whose pockets are being filled." The Možura project is under the heavy shadow of corruption, while the business of electricity production from MHP and VE in Montenegro has become an exemplary example of the functioning of a "captured" state", according to the ASP announcement.

Since the end of 2014, when the first MHP was put into operation, and consumers paid 80 thousand euros in subsidies, until the beginning of this year, as ASP representatives said, up to 32 MHP and two VE - Možura and Krnovo, while subsidies for last year reached the amount of 21,6 million euros.

"The amount of subsidies increased significantly from year to year. Thus, consumers paid 2015 thousand euros in 624, 2,3 million a year later, 2017 million in 4,5, and 2018 million in 13,2. In 2019, subsidies were 14,9 million euros, in 2020 19,2 million, and last year 21,6 million," ASP specified.

They added that subsidies in the first two months of this year amount to 4,5 million euros.

In relation to the total paid amount of 81 million euros, subsidies for electricity from VE amount to 56,1 million, of which 13,1 million goes to Možur and the rest to VE Krnovo.

"Due to the Možure project, which became a major corruption affair, an investigative journalist was killed in Malta, who uncovered corrupt schemes. "There is no progress in the investigation in Montenegro," ASP said.

They reminded that subsidies are paid for 12 years.

"If the existing privileged legal framework remains, for the changes of which no government has so far shown readiness, it can be assumed that in the next decade the subsidies will amount to at least another 200 million euros, which will be a kind of extortion of consumers for the sake of private interests", they said from the ASP -a.

They added that it is difficult to expect that spenders in the foreseeable future could be protected from this unfair levy.

"As it becomes more and more clear to the citizens that there is nothing to dismantle the three-decade system of the DPS, which created a system of the privileged and created a state that is labeled as "captured" from international addresses, and that it is pointless to expect any fairer system of social justice, it is and it is difficult to expect that consumers could be protected from this unfair levy in the foreseeable future," ASP said.