Lučić resigned from "Montenegro Forests"

The board of directors of the new state-owned company "Crna Gora Šume" was dissolved after a board member Slavisa Lucic has resigned, multiple sources confirmed to "Vijesti". This company was founded in October last year, but has not yet been officially registered, has no workforce or machinery, and now no management...

At the end of February this year, the government appointed a Board of Directors that included Lučić, Igor Vojinović, Saša Bjeković, Ilija Krejovic i Petar Knezevic.

According to unofficial information from the editorial office, the initiative to evaluate Lučić's appointment had previously reached the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK). Lučić is the current executive director of the Podgorica-based company "Institut za šumarstvo".

The mandates of the members of the Board of Directors of the company "Crna Gora Šume" have not been verified, nor has a constitutive session been convened on this occasion, at which the further organization of this company would continue, it is written in the explanation of the amendments to the Law on Forests. These amendments are in the parliamentary procedure, and were submitted by a deputy of the Europe Now Movement (PES) Dane Markovic.

They also point out that a significant challenge for this company is the Law on Business Companies, which came into force at the beginning of this year and whose implementation is planned from the end of March, and that the company has not yet been registered because the CRPS-IRMS information system is not functional.

The company "Crna Gora šume" was founded six months ago with the aim of taking over the jurisdiction and managing state-owned forests, abandoning the concession model, while also engaging in forestry, logging, production and sale of wood and non-wood forest products, and construction and maintenance of infrastructure.

These tasks have so far been handled by the Forest and Hunting Management Administration, which would be delegated the tasks of inspection supervision, control of construction projects and work in departments. It was also planned that most of its employees would transfer to the new forestry company, but this did not happen because the employees of the Administration have repeatedly stated that they would not agree to transfer to the new company “Crna Gora Šume”.

The division of forestry responsibilities was supposed to be done on January 1st last year, through the umbrella Forest Law, but this has not happened to date because the Law is not yet applicable. The Parliament adopted this regulation at the end of July 2024.

At the beginning of last year, all responsibilities in the forestry sector were transferred to a state-owned company - which did not exist at that time, after which they were returned to the Administration last summer. The same was done this year, when the tasks were transferred to “Crna Gora šuma”, which is still not functioning.

The Forest Law must be amended for the third time because businessmen in this and the wood processing sector are currently unable to use forests under contracts they have already signed, while last year, due to the blockade of tree allocation, the felling and sale of wood in private forests was stopped. This is why there were several protests last year.

That is why, at the beginning of April, a PES MP proposed new amendments to the Forest Law, which would return these tasks to the Administration by the beginning of 2027.