Neither the capital city nor the government adequately help agricultural producers, but not because of a lack of money in the budget, but solely because of ignorance and lack of interest, said Nikola Radulović, a candidate for councilor in front of the Movement for Podgorica in the upcoming local elections in Podgorica and director of AD Plodovi. Montenegro.
"Due to the lack of interest of the former mayor and PES as a political organization, the cold store with a capacity of two thousand tons in Mataguži is empty. Agricultural producers are dissatisfied, and ideas for its valorization failed due to insufficient support.
My last idea related to the refrigerator was to give it to agricultural producers to protect their products from spoilage in the summer, and to share the costs of electricity and maintenance between the municipalities of Podgorica, Tuzi, Zeta and the Government. These maintenance costs, if shared, would be negligible. On the occasion of this meeting, the only one that respected us was the municipality of Zeta, and we held a constructive meeting with them, but we still did not reach an agreement due to the absence of an agreement with the other parties," Radulović said in a statement sent to the media.
He added that his second idea was to dismantle the entire cold store, because it is of the prefabricated type, and to move it to Podgorica to the area next to the Truck Market.
"This was met with great resistance, especially from the representatives of the Government because they thought it was an insignificant idea. To realize it, we would need, according to the estimation of several companies that came, up to 200 thousand euros, which for the Government and the capital would not be should have been a lot, especially since that investment would pay off quickly, and the stalls from the truck market would solve the problem of storing their goods in our cold storage.
The extension of the contract with "Markets and markets" prevented me, as the director of Plodovi, from doing anything about taking over the market. This is one of the reasons why I left PES," Radulović pointed out.
He said that the company Plodovi owns assets of over ten million euros, but this was ignored, and he was not invited to any collegium with the mayor where they would jointly make a decision on how best to use these assets.
"The exception happened when the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. My initiative to discuss the financial report of this company at the Assembly of the Capital City was rejected once. To make matters worse, considering that the Government of Montenegro has a 26 percent share in the ownership of Plodo, it was to be expected that they would become more involved with some development idea or initiative, which I persistently insisted on, especially since PES had a seat on the board of directors of Plodov.
The Plodovi company currently has just enough income to regularly pay salaries and other obligations, we do not have the ability to take out credit or borrow money from shareholders. On the other hand, ten days ago we received a letter from a representative of the Government asking why we are not initiating the purchase of surplus agricultural products on the market of Montenegro, and if I, as the executive director, "do not want" to initiate the purchase, that I should resign and that the board choose someone else who will deal with the purchase," said Radulović.
He believes that this only speaks of the bluffing attitude of the Government towards the Fruits.
"Neither the capital city nor the government adequately help agricultural producers, but not because of a lack of money in the budget, but solely because of ignorance and lack of interest. In support of their ignorance and lack of interest, I will cite an example related to agriculture.
Currently, in Montenegro, as well as in the region, there is a livestock disease 'Q fever', which is an extraordinary circumstance because the disease was introduced into Montenegro, and the competent ministry has no measures to help producers. Another example is that imports are greater than our production, even though we can produce enough food for our needs and thus reduce imports," said a member of the Movement for Podgorica.
He recalled that ten years ago, the city's company Trznice i pijace had a program to help producers by providing free sales points, which, he says, was a good idea, but it was canceled a long time ago because the city did not know how to deal with it, and Radulović fears that this skill is even less now.
"Why aren't domestic producers branded? Why aren't producers and traders separated at every market in Podgorica, so that there is a difference? Why aren't companies more digitized? These are all unanswered questions. I'm sure that we can better respect agricultural producers and to improve the realization of their, that is, our, domestic products," he concluded.
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