Bankruptcy administrator of the company Vektra Jakić Dejan Keković disputed part of the claims to the former workers of that wood processing company, which caused their indignation, and many announced the initiation of court cases in order to prove the validity of their claims.
Yesterday, Keković confirmed to Vijesti that he reduced part of the debt owed to former employees, and that he informed each of them in writing about this.
Keković was elected bankruptcy trustee on September 19, after being the previous bankruptcy trustee Dragan Popovic relieved of duty at personal request.
"I contested part of the claim for most of the workers, based on the fact that they worked for a certain period at the company Vektra Optel. That company is another legal entity and I could not accept claims from another company. They should have reported those claims to that company," Keković said.
He called on former workers to initiate civil proceedings if they believe they can prove their claims.
"I see no reason why I should not recognize someone's well-founded claims to have them on the company's books. I received the documentation from accounting and based on it I make a decision. I can't admit something that doesn't match the documentation, and I'm not provided with some proof for it," Keković said.
In addition to the debts related to the contracts in Vektra Optel, the bankruptcy administrator did not recognize the claims of former employees based on overtime and other grounds, because these data were not in the accounting books of Vektra Jakić.
Keković could not say how much the total debts to former employees of Vektra Jakić amount to.
150 million euros, according to unofficial data from Vijesti, are the amount of reported claims so far
Representative of former employees Žarko Mazalica claims that the former bankruptcy trustee had acknowledged all these, now disputed, claims.
He says that workers' claims have been reduced from one thousand to four thousand euros.
"So far, four bankruptcy trustees have gone through Vektra Jakić since the introduction of bankruptcy. The first three gave up, while the fourth, Keković, accepted bankruptcy proceedings. The bankruptcy administrator before Keković, Dragan Popović, asked the accounting service to provide him with the amount owed to the workers, and he accepted everything. The new bankruptcy trustee reduced the debts owed to the workers due to the fact that we worked at Vektra Jakić and the contracts were signed by the owner Dragan Brkovic gave Vektra Optel, a former military factory that exists only on paper. He did this in order to avoid the legal obligation not to hire workers who had worked for three years at Vektra Jakić for an indefinite period of time. He would transfer them to Vektra Optel by contract in order to avoid that legal obligation," said Mazalica.
He invited all the politicians in Montenegro, especially the prime minister Milojko Spajić to get involved in solving the problem of Vektra Jakić and debts to the workers.
"Spajić told me in one conversation that he would solve the problem of Vektra Jakić, pay the workers, pay us contributions and start production. From then until today, none of that has been done," said Mazalica.
He says that according to his knowledge, the total claims against the workers are around 320.000 euros.
Production at Vektra Jakić was stopped on December 12, 2018, and the company was declared bankrupt at the end of last year at the request of the Tax Administration.
Mazalica claims that Brković owed the workers from 15 to 40 wages and that he did not pay them for four years of service.
According to unofficial data from Vijesti, claims of over 150 million euros have been reported so far.
The largest claims were reported by OTP banka for around 113 million euros, and the tax administration for over 13 million euros.
Claims from Vektra Jakić, among others, were reported by the Municipality of Pljevlja, the municipal companies Vodovod i Čistoća, Lovćen Insurance, Vektor Sistem Sejuriti, Elektroprivreda Crne Gore...
In Vektra Jakić, the electricity was turned off due to debt.
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