ASP: UPC hides the payments of Blaž Đukanović and privileged, concession fees declared secret for the first time

The Action for Social Justice (ASP) announced that the Revenue and Customs Administration (UPC) for the first time declared the payment of concession fees, which are paid to the state by the owners of small hydropower plants (SHP) or the owners of mines in the country, as a tax secret, which is an inadmissible legal precedent, which transparency in the country is pushing below the limit that existed even during the complete rule of the DPS.

The ASP said that in the past, the UPC regularly submitted this type of data based on the Law on Free Access to Information, not only to them but also to other non-governmental organizations, and it would also publish the approved information on its website.

"However, UPC last week rejected ASP's request, which asked for the amounts of concession fees paid by 18 economic entities, which until the middle of this year managed 30 mHP, and to which consumers pay millions in subsidies through their electricity bills", according to ASP .

They said that due to the construction of small hydropower plants, rivers in the country were devastated to a significant extent.

"And, in this business, companies and individuals close to the top of the DPS, as well as relatives of that party top, like Blaž Đukanović, the son of the Montenegrin president (Milo Đukanović), are privileged," says ASP.

They add that the rivers on which MHPs are built are the natural good of all citizens, for which concession fees are paid to the state.

"UPC has now for the first time declared the amounts of paid concession fees a tax secret, but at the same time it did not state at all what are the new decisive circumstances/facts that make them secret information, because in previous years it had regularly submitted them. Previously, the Administration refused to ASP - to submit the amounts of paid concessions from the company 'Gradir Montenegro' from Pljevlje, which manages a mine in that municipality and which is backed by Polish capital, after the resale from Veselin Pejović from Nikšić," said the ASP.

Ores are also, as ASP says, natural assets of all citizens, for the use of which concession fees are paid to the state, and, they say, it is indisputable public interest for citizens to have information of this kind, and it is completely unbelievable that these concession fees are also declared a tax secret ".

They point out that the decisions declaring the fees secret were signed by the new UPC director Rade Milošević.

"Kadar Ure, whose leader publicly advocates for the complete transparency of information in the possession of state authorities, but it is clear that this remains only in rhetoric and not in deeds. ASP will initiate appropriate legal proceedings in an attempt to obtain the requested information," the statement concludes. .