The successful operation of the state maritime company Crnogorska plovidba lasted for a little more than a year, because this company immediately after the dismissal of the former Board of Directors chaired by the captain of long-distance navigation Jovo Lazarevic and filling that body with representatives of the parties that make up or have made up the current Prime Minister's Government Dritan Abazović, returned to long-term bad business practices and poor results.
Confirmation of this also came from the last session of the Government, where the "Information on the settlement of the Government's obligations towards Exim Kina bank based on the state guarantee issued for the purposes of the credit arrangement concluded between Crnogorska plovidba and Exim Kina bank" was established, and in which, among other things, it is written that the state-owned company it failed to raise enough money from its own resources to pay the regular, January half-yearly installment of the loans to the Chinese, taken in 2010 for the construction of its ships in Shanghai. The due January installment amounts to $2.551.485, of which Crnogorska plovidba, although the Chinese extended the payment deadline until February 20, managed to collect and pay only $950.000.
Silence
Because of this, the Chinese officially warned the Ministry of Finance because the state is the guarantor of loan repayment and requested that the government instead of the state company pay them the remaining amount of the January installment in the amount of 20 dollars by February 1.601.485. Thus, the state, after last year's break in which both installments for 2022 were paid by the company from its operating profit, will now once again pay the credit obligations of the maritime company from Kotor.
On Thursday, "Vijesti" asked the state-owned company what business result Crnogorska plovidba ended 2022 with and what influenced that result, as well as the reasons why the company does not have the money to fully settle the debt due for the January installment of the loan, but questions were not answered.
In previous years, while DPS was in power, the state returned most of the installments of this loan, which was reduced to the amount of 47.396.000 dollars for 15 years, with a fixed interest rate of three percent per year. Interest payments began in 2010, while principal payments began in July 2015 and are paid twice a year, on January 21 and July 21.
Crnogorska plovidba headed by the executive director Slobo Pajović (DPS) will have to return all these installments, which the state as a guarantor on behalf of that company has paid to the Chinese, to the state budget. Namely, in July of last year, the Agency for the Protection of Competition (AZK) issued a decision stating that this state guarantee was "the granting of the guarantee to Crnogorska plovidba represented illegally granted state aid, which means that every unpaid installment of the loan paid by the state on the basis of the guarantee, state aid in the full amount of those installments".
Last year, for the first time in a long time, the company was able to use its own money to pay the annual installments for 2022 in the amount of just over five million dollars, because the former management led by Lazarevic managed to minimize the long-standing problems in the company through a series of measures and skilfully use last year's significant improvement opportunity on the world market of ship space, and concluded significantly more favorable contracts on "time charter" (time charter) of the company's ships, first with the previous charterer, the company "Sea Pioneer" from London, and then with the new company "Global American Transport" from Chicago .
"May 21" without a tenant
According to the contracts concluded by the former Board of Directors with the American charterer, the ships "Kotor" and "21. maj" sailed for a daily freight rate of just over 20.000 dollars. "Time charter" under these conditions for "21. May" recently ended, but the current management has not yet found new long-term employment for the ship, which has been in Turkey for a month. The current "time charter" contract for the ship "Kotor" expires in April, and since in the meantime the conditions on the world market for shipping space have again become unfavorable for shipowners and there has been a significant drop in freight rates for "handy size buklcarriere" such ships Crnogorske plovidba, it is very uncertain whether and under what conditions the current management of the Kotor company will re-contract its ships with the current or a new charterer.
Despite the fact that they had completed almost all major obligations from their predecessors and had enough time to accumulate profits from the high contracted freight rates with which they would repay the installment of Kinesium at the beginning of this year, as well as the fact that their former management completed the regular five-year overhaul and docking of the ship "Kotor" last year ” worth over 1,1 million dollars and left enough money for them to complete it a few months later with the ship “21. May", the current Board of Directors chaired by him Nemanja Petrovic (SNP), proved to be unable to capitalize on this and continue the positive trends in the company's operations. Therefore, Crnogorska plovidba, which had a profit of 973.729 euros at the end of September last year, is now in trouble again and is dependent on, as it turned out in the meantime, illegally granted state aid, which the company will have to return to the state coffers.
Due to the poor work results and deterioration of almost all parameters in the company that followed in the last few months, the Directorate for the Maritime Economy of the Ministry of Capital Investments (MKI) requested the dismissal of the current Board of Directors, but the Minister of Capital Investments Ervin Ibrahimovic (BS) has not reacted to it so far.
In the meantime, Prime Minister Dritan Abazović announced that all four cargo ships that are currently sailing exclusively in the fleets of the state company Crnogorska plovidba, i.e. Barska plovidba, which is majority owned by the state, will soon be united under one shipping company - Barska plovidba ra more efficient operation and accumulation of profits from which the procurement of ferries for the Bar-Bari line would be started.
Abazović pointed out that the economic parameters clearly indicate that none of the two companies that have only two ships each can be successful and that such a small fleet should be united under one administration and thus reduce administrative and other unnecessary costs. Considering the problems and bad work of the current management of Crnogorska plovidba, which culminated in the inability of that company to repay the loan to the Chinese bank on its own, it is almost certain that the end is "in sight" for the company from Kotor and that its ships will be taken over by Barska plovidba, which is in better condition than Crnogorska plovidba.
In politics, success and professional references mean nothing
Already the first incomplete year in that position - in 2021, the former board of directors headed by Lazarevic, who was appointed in March of that year by the former Prime Minister's Government Zdravka Krivokapića, managed to reverse the long-term trend of negative business of that company. Even though both installments of the loan to the Chinese were paid from the state budget that year, the Board of Directors consisting of Lazerević and members Vojislav Ilic, Damir Stojanovic, Željko Dedijer i Nemanja Petrovic, managed to end the business year 2021 with a profit of around 100.000 euros. The company then continued its upward trend, so at the end of the first half of 2022 it was in a surplus of 1.080.099 euros, but despite this, at the end of June last year, Vlada Abazović replaced this Board of Directors and appointed a new one at the suggestion of Ibrahimović. Although Ibrahimović never publicly announced the reasons for that dismissal, the main motive for it was politics, because the previously successful Board of the company included representatives delegated by the Democrats, DF, URA and SNP. On Ibrahimović's recommendation, the Government dismissed them and appointed a new Board of Directors, in which only the SNP kept its seats for its representatives, and the other members were replaced by DPS, SDP and Albanian coalition cadres.
In addition to Nemanja Popović and Ivan Kečina (SNP), the current Board of Directors consists of i Tena Božović (SDP), Ahmet Markasevic (Democratic Party of Albanians) i Milan Popovic (DPS). Apart from Popović and Kečina, who for a short time worked as port agents for yachts in Kotor, none of the other members of the Board of Directors have any connection or work experience with the operations of maritime companies, while in the former Board of Directors, in addition to experienced seafarers, there were also two engineers shipbuilding from the former Adriatic shipyard Bijela.
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