The Forest Law should be amended to extend the deadline for forming a new company, and to facilitate employment, forestry engineers should be declared a scarce resource.
This was stated by the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, Vladimir Joković, in the Parliament, answering parliamentary questions.
The Forest Law came into force in mid-August last year, and its full implementation is planned for January 1st of this year, however, a new company that would manage the forests has not been established, no money has been allocated in the state treasury for its work, nor has mechanization been provided.
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When asked by a member of the Democratic Party of Socialists why this process has not been initiated, Joković asked where in the Law it says that the Ministry of Agriculture must form this company, and that the Ministry of Economic Development or the one responsible for state property can also do it.
"The ministry did not proceed with the formation of a state-owned enterprise for several reasons. The Forest Law needed to be drafted and adopted for several practical reasons, however, due to staffing and financial shortcomings for the purchase of machinery, it was planned that amendments would be made at the end of the year to change the articles of the law relating to the competence of maintaining equipment, marking designations for forest logging. Due to the boycott of the Parliament, this could not be implemented before the Forest Law entered into force," he pointed out.
Nobody wants to work for a new company.
Joković added that the prerequisites for forming the company were not provided and that due to the short timeframe, the Ministry of Finance did the budgeting of the Forest and Hunting Management Administration and allocated 7,5 million euros for its functioning in 2025, while the employees of the Administration and their union submitted a petition, where most or almost all of them and 77 forestry engineers signed against the establishment of the new company. The law plans for some of the employees from the Administration to transfer to the new company.
"In this way, they sent a message that they do not want to transition to a planned forest management company," said Joković, adding that the Administration's workers were concerned about similar models from the region.
Joković added that the Law now needs to be amended to extend the deadline for forming a company, to do so in a quality manner, and to facilitate employment by declaring forestry engineers as a scarce resource. He said that it would also help that the Ministry provides scholarships to all students studying in the region.
"When the analysis of the company's operations was conducted, 27 percent of the forests in Montenegro that could be exploited were privately owned and the rest were state-owned. Now, due to the restitution of property and court processes, of which there are many, about 58 percent of forests are already privately owned. And it is necessary to conduct an additional study on the justification for forming this company, whether and how to operate," he said, adding that a similar company in Republika Srpska is operating with a deficit of several million euros.
MP Aleksandra Despotović asked what Joković's role is, given that all the shortcomings have already been pointed out in parliamentary hearings. She claims that the World Bank submitted a letter at the end of February in which they are considering whether to offer a loan of 80 million euros, given that reforms have not been carried out.
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