Two days ago, faeces from the shafts flooded the promenade along the Bečići beach, and guests of elite hotels had to stay in their rooms that day, which is why several hoteliers filed a joint lawsuit against the German company WTE, which manages the wastewater system.
"Vijesti" confirmed that the hotel companies "Iberostar", "Belvi hotels group", "Montenegro stars", as well as the company that manages the hotel "Tara", filed a joint lawsuit against WTE.
Those hotels claim that faeces from the shafts spread over the promenade, beach bars, but also flowed like a river into the sea, so tourists could neither swim nor rest on the beach due to the polluted water and unbearable smell.
Thus, thousands of guests staying in the elite hotels "Iberostar", "Belvi", "Montenegro" and "Tara" had to stay in their rooms, while the workers of the hotel companies, with the help of the municipal services, Vodovod and Komunalno, repaired the great damage.
The hotel company "Belvi Hotels Group" confirmed to "Vijesta" yesterday that a lawsuit was filed due to immeasurable damage that was caused in the height of the high season. They reiterated that the leading tour operators TUI, Neckerman, Thomas Cook and others with whom they cooperate filed lawsuits due to guest complaints.
Currently, more than 3.000, mostly foreign guests, are staying in hotels in Vičići.
The problem arose when the pumping station on the beach was blocked, which injects sewage into the system and leads to the main plant in the Vještica settlement in Bečići. Yesterday morning, they say, there was a blockage again.
"We simply don't know what to do, when we talk to the people at WTE, they tell us that everything is fine, and the faeces are coming out of the manholes," they stated in "Belvi hotels group".
And the "Montenegro stars hotels group", which manages the elite hotels "Montenegro" and "Splendid", confirmed that they joined the lawsuit.
The German company did not make any official announcement regarding the incident.
"Vijesti" was told in the office of the President of the Municipality, Marko Bata Carevic, that immediately after the incident, all municipal services were alerted and went to the scene.
"Maintenance and management of the waste water plant is the responsibility of the WTE company, which is why they are most invited to give answers as a result of which the incident occurred. The municipality reacted immediately and put all the available capacities of the Water and Utilities Company in order to remediate the consequences and enable smooth functioning. To us, as a local government, the attitude of the WTE company, from which they announced that their computers show that everything is fine, and that we have this situation on the ground in the middle of the tourist season, is unacceptable," said Tsarević's office.
The construction of a wastewater treatment plant is one of the most controversial contracts concluded by the former DPS-SDP government with the German company "Waser tehnik" from Essen. This German company is mostly owned by the Austrian concern EVN, and for years it has been the subject of an investigation by the Special Prosecutor's Office.
Former mayors and the owner of the company "Biotech industries" Stjepan Skočajić labeled the former high-ranking official of the DPS Svetozar Marović as the head of a criminal group, which took at least three million euros by ransacking the plant. These tranches of money were paid from 2011 to 2013, and allegedly enabled Marović to repay a debt to a certain Gojko Kapisoda, from whom he borrowed five million euros, assuring him that the money was going to the state of Montenegro.
That there was corruption in this business was also confirmed by the former director of WTE for Montenegro Ginter Faust, who was also arrested.
The new city administration paid the German company more than 11 million euros in the past three years alone. The previous government, which concluded this contract, and with which Budva is charged with a project worth 58 million euros, practically avoided paying its obligations for years and did not pay a single cent. After the arrival of the new government, the Germans threatened to activate the guarantee of 29,3 million euros, which was given by the state.
Dragan Krapović's administration paid 6,5 million euros, with the hiring of the consulting company "DR Duhovnik", which supervised the project and determined that the Germans had spent 39 million euros on the entire project.
Bearing in mind that the corruption of three million was recognized, the final figure was 36 million. The municipality was ready to take a loan and pay the Germans. However, the Germans threatened that they would not accept the supervision, and that they would activate the guarantee, and they asked Mayor Tsarević that the supervision be carried out by a mixed commission. A few months ago, they were paid 3,5 million euros in debt and as much as 800 thousand euros for the maintenance of the project. This left the Germans in charge of the plant until April of the following year.
Municipality: We are doing everything to finally solve the problem
The Municipality reminded that the problem related to waste water management was inherited from the previous government.
"And we are doing everything in order to finally solve that problem by forming a mixed commission from representatives of the Municipality and the WTE company, which will soon finish its work, after which we will fully determine the total debt and take over the management of the complete system. With this, the Municipality will fully take responsibility on itself, and not, as was the situation until now, that we are hostages of bad contracts and agreements of the previous government and the WTE company. We are doing all this so that citizens do not suffer from similar occurrences and so that it does not happen that in the middle of the tourist season we have ecological disasters in our metropolis of tourism," Tsarević's office announced to "Vijesta".
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