The Ministry of Capital Investments (MKI), headed by the Minister Ervin Ibrahimovic (Bosniak Party), avoids explaining why that department is the Prime Minister's Government Dritan Abazović (URA) proposed, and she accepted, to replace the current Board of Directors of the state maritime company Crnogorska plovidba (CP) from Kotor, although the management had very good results in the past year that he managed CP.
Even after seven days, the "News" from MKI did not answer the question of what motivated Minister Ibrahimović to initiate the dismissal of the current Board of Directors of the CP, who were the captain of the long voyage. Jovo Lazarevic as president and members Vojislav Ilic, Damir Stojanovic, Željko Dedijer i Nemanja Petrovic, despite the good results achieved by that board in the past year in terms of financial consolidation of CP, payment of loan installments for purchased ships from own funds, not the state budget, and conclusion of CP ships in time charter at much higher daily rents than before.
Under this management, CP, which during its previous DPS-SDP-SD-BS Board of Directors was a chronic long-term loser, last year after a long time, made a profit again. The company paid both of this year's installments in the amount of over 5,2 million dollars from its own funds based on the loan to the Chinese Exim Bank taken for the construction of its ships in Shanghai in 2012, from its own funds it performed regular overhaul, docking and the five-year so-called the renovation of the class of the ship "Kotor" in the amount of over 1,1 million euros, symbolically increased the earnings of the crews of its ships, and last year CP finally redefined its relations with the previous long-term exclusive lessee of its ships - the company "Sea Pioneer" from London and for between two and half and three times increased the rents at which "Kotor" and "Dvadeset prvi maj" sailed in time-charter for that partner. After the expiration of the time-charter for "Kotor", the previous management recently found a new, significantly more reputable tenant from the USA, with whom a time-charter contract for "Kotor" was concluded for one year at a daily rent of $20.100.
Instead of this Board of Directors in which there were representatives delegated by the Democrats, DF, URA and SNP, among whom were experienced seafarers and shipbuilding engineers, on the recommendation of Minister Ibrahimović, the Government has now proposed to the CP Shareholders' Assembly to elect a new Board in which only the SNP retained seats for its representatives, and the other members were replaced by DPS, SDP and Albanian coalition cadres, who have no experience in maritime affairs.
The MKI did not respond to "Vijesti's" question to say specifically which party proposed to that body which candidate for new members of the CP Board of Directors, nor to provide us with the official biographies of those people. Since the sole owner of CP is the state and the Government has appointed a long-time official of the MKI Snežana Đurković (DPS) to represent her at the upcoming session of the Company's Shareholders' Assembly, it is certain that a new Board will be appointed and that the management of Crnogorski plovid will soon be taken over by the new president of the Board of Directors, Dr. Tena Božović - wife of the honorary president of the SDP and the current minister of foreign affairs Ranka Krivokapića.
Božović is a Doctor of Science in Tourism Management. She has no experience in managing a maritime company that operates on the global shipping space market, but she will replace long-sea captain Jov Lazarevic as president of the Board of Directors of CP, who has over three decades of experience and work for renowned foreign shipping companies.
Instead of two experienced engineers from the former Adriatic shipyard Bijela who were in the previous board of directors, a high school mathematics teacher will sit in the new Board of Directors of CP (Ahmet Markasevic - cadre of the Democratic Party from Ulcinj) and one economist graduate (Milan Popovic - DPS personnel from Kotor). Popović was the director of Kotor Municipal Company for two years, and his only connection with the maritime industry is his former media statement as the director of Kotor that "the people of Kotor want to clean yachts, but they won't clean the streets."
The only member of the current CP Board of Directors that Minister Ibrahinović proposed for the new Board is a member of the SNP Nemanja Popovic who once worked in a maritime agency in Kotor, and has the same experience in performing agency work for yachts Ivan Kečin. This graduate manager in the maritime industry has not been noticeably exposed to the party until now, but "Vijesti" sources claim that she is also a member of the SNP.
According to the party line, Božović was also the deputy director of Luka Kotor
Tena Božović's appointment as head of Crnogorsk plovidba will not be her first appointment in a business company along political lines, because at the express wish of her unmarried husband, Ranko Krivokapić, in 2017, Božović was brought to the previously non-existent position of deputy executive director in the majority state-owned company Luka Kotor, in which Ranko Krivokapić is the leading minority shareholder.
The change in the systematization of the Port of Kotor and the employment of his unmarried partner as deputy executive director was one of the key conditions of the Kotor SDP for forming a coalition with the Democrats, DF and URA, by which those parties, after the 2016 elections, replaced the previous long-term local government DPS- and in Kotor. Although she got everything she asked for, including the appointment of Božović in Port of Kotor, the SDP soon "turned the turkey upside down" and began to overthrow the power of those parties in Kotor, which culminated in the official transfer of one of their councilors to the side of the DPS and her return that party to power in Kotor without elections.
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