The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Crnogorska plovidba, Jovo Lazarević, said that employees of that company are only paid variable compensation, but not bonuses.
He was reacting to the allegations made by Maritime Affairs Minister Filip Radulović.
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"Crnogorska plovidba AD Kotor, according to the organization of work, has 17 systematized jobs, and a total of nine employees in employment. Almost each of the employees covers two or three jobs, with daily communication with ships, which for some employees is at the level of about eight to 14 hours a day, while for those from the top management, availability is 24 hours. The coefficients determined by the systematization for regular work of employees, for a specific job, are defined at a lower level than what is stipulated in the Law on Salaries in the Public Sector. It was determined that they are lower compared to other state-owned companies in the maritime sector and are not aligned with the sectoral collective agreement for the maritime industry, which stipulates somewhat higher coefficients. All these adjustments required the consent of the Ministry of Finance, which was not obtained in previous years. What is also characteristic of this company, unlike a significant number of other state-owned companies, is that there are no agreed salaries for executive management with the Board of Directors. Because of all this, and in accordance with the Law on Labor and the Law on Salaries in the Public Sector, an approach was taken "bringing total salaries into a more realistic framework, through the introduction of variable compensation for all employees. In addition to regular salaries, only variable compensation is paid, but not bonuses to employees, as mentioned in the interview," said Lazarević.
He said that the monthly amount of variable compensation for nine employees is around 3,4 thousand euros, "which is around 40 thousand euros annually."
"If this compensation were abolished, and employees refused to do additional work beyond what is required of them according to the systematization of their job, all positions provided for in the systematization would have to be filled, which would require an allocation of at least 12 thousand euros per month, or 144 thousand euros per year, which is almost 3,6 times more than the current variable compensation. We can interpret that the amount related to variable compensation of around 40 thousand euros may have greater or lesser significance for companies, but it would be difficult to accept the view that for a company like CP, which has not had total annual revenues below six million euros in the last 10 years, such an amount could be crucial and decisive for its financial situation," he adds.
"It is particularly important to point out that the Ministry asked the Board of Directors and management of CP to accept a worse ship charter contract ($8.750 instead of the one agreed upon by the Board of Directors and management of CP at $9.000) for $250 less per day, just because it was agreed upon by BP, which amounts to about $7,5 thousand per month, or $90 thousand per year, which is a level of a little over two annual variable remunerations for all employees. The Minister constantly insists in his interviews with the media that in this way, through the Agreement on Business and Technical Cooperation between CP and BP, CP is being saved. Several facts confirm that this is not the case. The first is that the whole problem arose due to the untimely extension of the multi-year Overdraft contract with Prva banka CG, which resulted in the blocking of CP's account by PBCG. The reason for not extending the contract in question is that the Ministry was two or three months late in giving its consent, which is why there is a legal obligation. Secondly, if someone wants to save a company, it is certain that "It will not increase the expenditure side, as was done with the Agreement on Business and Technical Cooperation between CP and BP. With this Agreement, CP received an additional levy, in the form of new brokerage costs, for which BP must pay the amount of nine percent of the total revenue generated. For the sake of public information, this service is paid at the level of 1,25 percent in world maritime practice, so the one envisaged for CP is some 7,2 times higher. Thirdly, if you are saving the company, you will not additionally deprive it of the amount of revenue, as was done with the order for the selection of a less favorable lease offer than the one already agreed upon by CP," says Lazarević.
He also points out that analyses have shown that Crnogorska plovidba, in the last four years of the "new government (2021-2024)", achieved better financial results than Barska plovidba.
"In addition, the loan to Exim Bank has been fully repaid, in the repayment of which the State of Montenegro, as the 100% owner of CP, participated with some 37 million, which is the debt that CP has to its owner. However, what is not mentioned anywhere, but the public should know, is that BP also has approximately the same, if not greater, debt. In this collective, the State is the owner with some 54 percent, and its debt is divided into two parts, one to the State in the name of the installments that were also paid from the Budget for loan repayment, as with CP, and the other is the rest of the debt to Exim Bank. BP should repay the debt to Exim Bank in the next eight to nine years, and the possibility of repayment will depend exclusively on future developments in the global maritime and financial market, i.e. on the movement of maritime freight rates and the euro/dollar ratio. It was logical that, instead of such a contractual relationship between these two shipping companies, which raised tensions among CP employees and the citizens of Kotor and Boka, "Minister Radulović made an agreement with the Board of Directors and the management of CP on the method, dynamics and amount of returning funds to the State budget, which would return the funds to whom they belong, which is exclusively the State," says Lazarević.
"Regarding the distribution of bonuses, this is something new for us and we would like the minister's statement to be presented to us and the Montenegrin public. This board of directors has never considered or distributed any bonuses during its one-year mandate. Finally, our position is that with this announcement we are terminating our public address to the ministry and we believe that all correspondence in the future will be as before, which is why we are at their disposal," it says in a response to Radulović.
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