The venture with the nationalization of the ferry transport activity in Boka Kotorska, which was entered into in February based on the decisions of the Government of Prime Minister Dritan Abazović, the Public Enterprise for the Management of the Maritime Resource, will cost close to 15 million euros.
This is shown by data from the latest, the eighth amendment to the public procurement plan of this state-owned company for 2023, i.e. three amendments to the Company's Money Use Plan for this year.
The sum of almost 15 million includes costs for the purchase, lease and overhaul of ferries, fuel, lubricants, consumables and spare parts, as well as the approximate amount of costs for the wages of several dozen new employees who were hired to the company for the purpose of operating the Kamenari-Lepetane ferry line.
The Executive Director of Morski Dobr Mladen Mikijelj and the President of the Board of Directors, Blažo Rađenović, have so far avoided publicly presenting precise data on the amount of expenses incurred by the company since February 15, when it took over this job from the private company Pomorski soabraćaj. Instead, the two of them and Abazović only repeatedly communicated the data on the realized income from the sale of ferry tickets, avoiding to correlate these income figures with the costs and express the final financial balance of this venture.
At the end of September, Mikijelj publicly announced that from the beginning of May to the end of September, the ferry line generated 4,5 million euros in revenue, that the expenses were 1,3 million, and the profit was 3,2 million, while the plan is for the annual profit to be 4,5 million. Along with this calculation, he did not announce that they had spent 12 million by the end of September for the purchase of eight ferries, six of which were from Maritime Transport for just over eight million, and one each from Greece (3,4 million) and Croatia (590.000).
The extent of the costs that this state-owned company has had so far in taking over that activity from the hands of a private operator can only be seen from the analysis of publicly available documents - the repeatedly changed public procurement plans and plans for the use of the company's money for this year.
In the latest amendment to the Public Procurement Plan, there are three purchases of fuel for ferries in the total amount of 730.000 euros, one purchase each - oil and lubricants for 100.000 euros, grease for 10.000 euros, spare parts for 50.000 euros and consumables for ferries for 20.000 euros.
Additional costs were the procurement of official clothes for ferry line workers 50.000 euros, repairs of the ferries "Kamenari" 101.000 euros, "Lepetane" 103.000 euros and "Trideseti avgust" 500.000 euros. There should also be added the costs for compulsory insurance of boarded persons and vehicles transported by ferries, EUR 40.000, the rental of the "Igalo" ferry, EUR 60.000, as well as the costs of wages for new employees for maritime transport, which, according to the data available so far, amount to at least EUR 2023 million. Namely, in the original Plan for the use of Morski Dobr's money for 66, adopted before the former government entered into the nationalization of ferry transport in Boka, the salaries of the then current 1.949.437 employees of the Morski Dobr were planned to cost 2.949.437 euros, so that after In February, the company took over the ferry business and started hiring new workers, the amount of the company's expenses for the wages of its employees was increased to XNUMX euros.
In total, when everything is added up and the costs of minor construction works, the installation of new ticket office facilities at the ferry piers and the development of ticket sales software are added, Morsko is good for taking over the ferry business from private individuals, as well as all the operational costs involved in carrying out that activity, in this year had expenditures of almost 15 million euros.
"Thirtieth of August" without technical documentation
From the public tender for the overhaul of the "Trideseti August" ferry, with an estimated value of half a million euros, it can also be seen that when Morsko dobro bought the more than half a century old and dilapidated ship in Croatia at the end of February, it did not receive all the technical documentation with it.
At the request of one of the interested bidders to submit the blueprints of certain technical assemblies or parts of the ferry "Trideseti August" that need to be overhauled so that the interested shipyard can make a preliminary estimate and define the offer, Morski Dobr replied that that company does not have the requested blueprints and documentation. .
"Regarding blueprints, technical documentation for this ship, it does not exist, the ship did not have blueprints," it is officially written in the company's response to the bidder's request.
The bidder requested that they be provided with a draft of the collection chimney (exhaust system - chimney of the ferry), technical documentation and drafts of the existing boarding ramps, for the precise dimensions of the fenders that need to be replaced on the ship, the answer was that it was "impossible to give exact measurements" and instead of the requested photos of the inner part of the ship's hull where the fender is fixed to the formwork, the bidder was provided with several photos of the corroded or distorted existing fender on the outside of the ship's hull.
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