Dr. was elected yesterday as the new director of the Institute "Simo Milošević" from Igalo Zoran Kovacevic, Doctor of Economic Sciences and professor of subjects in the field of nautical tourism at the Maritime Faculty in Kotor.
According to his biography, Kovačević was already the executive director of the Institute from 2012 to 2015, when he was elected as the president of the Board of Directors of the Institute and when, on behalf of the Government, as the majority owner, he performed tasks related to the strategic management of the company.
Kovačević told "Vijesti" yesterday that the Institute is in a difficult situation, and that he is afraid that the contract with the Norwegian Health Fund will fail in the next year, from which they expect a final answer today.
The Norwegian program at the Institute has existed since 1976. Last year, patients from this Scandinavian country spent almost 22 nights and provided the Institute with an income of 2,3 million euros, which was a quarter of the total income. This so-called Norwegian program annually brought to the Institute about a quarter of the total income or 2,3 million euros and was the most significant after the deal with the Montenegrin Health Fund.
"Unfortunately, due to the situation in which it is in the past period, the Institute could not guarantee the quality of services required by Norwegian patients. That is why we fear that we will be rejected in the competition that the Norwegian fund announced for the year 2024 and to which the Institute applied. This will further complicate the financial situation in which the Institute finds itself. We used to operate successfully even without the Norwegian program, so we will have to do that for the next year as well", said Kovačević to "Vijesta".
He said that serious reforms, new systematization and rationalization of business need to be carried out in the Institute, as well as that he is convinced that the Institute can not only survive, but can also return to successful business.
"In my opinion, the Igalo Institute is the most important brand in Montenegro and we must preserve and improve it. We have healing mud, mineral water, good climate and geographical location. What will be a need and a challenge, especially if the termination of the Norwegian program is confirmed, is to expand the program with the state Health Fund and to find new foreign partners, which we will immediately start working on," said Kovačević.
When asked how much the recently signed collective agreement increases the costs of the Institute, Kovačević said that the total amount of salary costs increases by about 30 percent with the application of the new collective agreement.
The total amount for gross earnings in the last year was about 3,7 million euros, so on an annual level, an additional 1,2 million euros or about 100 thousand per month should be provided for salaries.
"It's a significant cost increase, but it was necessary. The institute was losing court cases due to the non-compliance of the collective agreement, and due to low salaries, a situation threatened that a significant number of professional staff would leave us", said Kovačević.
In addition to Kovačević, Igalo Institute also applied for the director's competition Slavica Milić from Podgorica, but before the decision, she withdrew her candidacy.
In the meantime, two of the five members of the Board of Directors of the Institute, representatives of the state capital, resigned from that position. The Law on Business Companies stipulates that the members of the board of directors, even after resignation, perform their duties until a new one is elected, but that the Shareholders' Assembly is obliged to elect a new board within 60 days.
So that Kovačević was elected yesterday with one vote of the state representative and two votes of the minority shareholders. Žarko Rakčević i Sava Kalezić.
To the former acting director of the Institute Sava Marić with the election of Kovačević, the acting mandate ended.
The institute has an accumulated loss from the previous period of 28 million euros, and in nine months of this year it made a loss in operations of 157 thousand euros.
Novska lista requests that the prosecutor's office check the vacancy for the director
Novska lista, a local party from Herceg Novi, members of the ruling coalition in that city and the "Europe Now" alliance at the state level, announced that they oppose the election of Kovačević, that they doubt that the contest is legal.
Officials of the Novska List, Vice President of the Municipality of Herceg Novi Miloš Konjević and a deputy Jovan Subotic, they invited the Minister of Justice yesterday Andrej Milović and the chief special prosecutor Vladimir Novović to examine the choice of director of the Igalo Institute.
"By electing Zoran Kovačević to the position of director of the Igalo Institute, the three-member Board of Directors without two members who have honorably resigned from their positions has shown that the DPS octopus is still active both in Herceg Novi and in the state of Montenegro," the announcement states. .
They also say that the majority in the Board of Directors of the Institute was thus entrusted to two members of the Board from among the minority shareholders - Žarko Rakčević and Savo Kalezić.
"Which was accepted and supported by the President of the Board Batrić Kontić, a member of the Socialist People's Party", they add.
The board of directors chosen by the Government, Dritan Abazović, as they say, brought to the head of this giant of the health and tourism industry the former president of the Club of DPS Councilors in the Assembly of Herceg Novi and a man who actively participated in the decade-long decline of the Igalo Institute.
"Given that this process does not have the support of either the Government or the city of Herceg Novi, we will fight with all legitimate means to prevent such a development of the situation, and for the Institute to be decided by those who were elected by the people, and not by those who have long since lost their support lost", say Konjević and Subotić.
Two members of the board of directors representing the state previously resigned, so Kovačević was elected with one vote from the state representative and two votes from the minority shareholders, Žarko Rakčević and Sava Kalezić.
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