The head of the Directorate for Forestry, Ranko Kankaraš, reacted to the statements of the Acting Director of the Directorate for Management of Forests and Hunting Grounds, Miloš Rajković, published in the article "Vijesti" under the title: "Burned 1.400 cubic meters of wood".
He said that neither the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management nor he refused or obstructed any request of the Administration, but that he had prepared and was supplementing the lawsuit against Rajković, "for defamation and damage to reputation and personal integrity".
He believes that Rajković's motive for the "orchestrated attacks" is that the state "took away his monopoly on the sale of forests, which all relevant addresses treat as organized forest robbery and lining other people's pockets."
We transmit Kankaraš's response in full.
"In the text, the acting director of the Forest Management Directorate, Miloš Rajković, states the untruth that the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management (as stated directly by me as the head of the Directorate for Forestry) did not give him permission to sell or transfer to citizens 1.400 m3 of wood in Pljevlje. For the sake of objectively informing the public, I am submitting for review the answer he received regarding his request for the sale of wood.
Therefore, if he had read the materials and knew the law, Miloš Rajković would have talked about the decision of the Government of Montenegro, which according to the law disposes of state property, if he was not malicious, he would have known that he was neither worth anything, nor did he need my consent for the sale, nor the gift of state property, because according to the law not even the minister, let alone the officials of the ministry, has the authority to do so. It is clear from the letter that it is untrue and that the Ministry did not give him permission to sell this tree, but the only truth is that the Forest Management Administration managed to complete the documentation after two years so that it could be referred to the Government for further procedures. Namely, the ministry received the complete documentation only a few days before the collective vacations when the Government is not in session, so it is clear that this is also a matter of subterfuge by Rajković.
As for the responsibility for the destruction of state property, in this case of wood assortments in the forest storage area, I refer Acting Director Rajković to the current Forest Law, which stipulates in Article 34 paragraph 3 that the Directorate for Forest and Hunting Management is obliged to ensure the preservation of forests and forest of land in state ownership (and he, as the head of the authority, organizes the protection) and that the protection of forests from fire is again the responsibility of the Directorate for Forest and Hunting Management, which can be read in Article 46 paragraphs 2 and 3 of the same law. I will help him in the further interpretation of the law, that forest storage areas, as part of forest infrastructure, are considered forest (Article 58, paragraph 3). When he sees this, the acting director will realize that he doesn't even know what his job is and that he has wandered into the place he is currently in, because he unconsciously accuses others of his failures in his work. Or, what's worse for him, he was already consciously afraid of responsibility???
I also deny the claims of Acting Director Rajković that he did not receive approvals for the sale of sanitary wood on time. The same as in the first case, it is about ignorance of the acting director, because he does not need the consent of the ministry, nor mine, but in order for the procedure to be completed, it is necessary for the Government of Montenegro to make a decision on the sale. On this occasion, in four cases this year, the Directorate for Forest and Hunting Management initiated sanitary felling through the auction sale of wood in a deep state, in accordance with Article 77 of the Law on Forests, which instructs that this sale be carried out in accordance with the regulations governing the state property.
In all four cases, the Ministry immediately after receiving the initiative began the procedure of preparing documentation for consideration by the Government, which entails obtaining the opinions of the competent ministries, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property. Therefore, it is not true that any request of the Forestry Administration was rejected or obstructed by the ministry or me personally. The Minister and the Director General of the Directorate for Forestry, Hunting and Wood Industry know that I personally and my colleague have contacted colleagues in the aforementioned ministries in order to obtain opinions as soon as possible. The following is evidence of the actions of this ministry based on the initiatives of the acting director, arranged chronologically for the year 2024:
These three proposed decisions were adopted by the Government, the decisions were published in the Official Gazette, and according to the same, the Directorate for Forest and Hunting Management published Public Calls for the auction sale of wood.
The fourth initiative was submitted recently, and in accordance with the procedure, the opinions of the relevant ministries were requested, for which I am attaching the following evidence:
From all of this, it is obvious that Acting Director Rajković has been untruthfully and maliciously creating a false image for a long time about the actions of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management according to the management's requests and slandering me. Because of these slanders, as well as the slanders uttered in the show 'Okvir' on TVCG, also full of false claims, I have prepared and am currently supplementing the lawsuit against Rajković Miloš for slander and damage to reputation and personal integrity, so we will see each other in court.
In this way, I will announce that Rajković's motives for the orchestrated attacks on the Ministry and me personally, as one of the bearers of the reform in the forestry sector, are very clear. Miloš Rajković, starting with the forestry profession, through the Ministry, then the Government, the Parliament and finally the President, was deprived of the monopoly of forest sales by the state, which all relevant addresses treat as organized forest robbery and lining other people's pockets. This is measured in tens of millions of euros, and I will be modest when I say those figures. And right now there is a current robbery of the state budget, because Rajković has deprived the state budget of 1,2 million euros with the current sale of forests in the way that he unilaterally created a public invitation and concluded contracts on the use of the state budget. Also, according to wood processors, about 500 families in the north of Montenegro were left without bread, so they were forced to block roads and strike in front of the government, which Montenegro has been buzzing about for the past month.
I am hereby pointing out the unprofessional attitude of 'Vijesti' journalists, who, not for the first time, are violating the Media Act, by not submitting the statements made to the Ministry or me for review, so that the readers would be clear from the answers that they are untruths," the response states.
Bonus video:
