Citizens and local authorities in Herceg Novi are dissatisfied with the toll collection on the Meljina Petijevići section

The toll on the Meljine Petijevići road for residents of the border municipalities of Herceg Novi in ​​Montenegro and Trebinje in the Republic of Srpska should be one euro, said the vice president of Herceg Novi municipality Miloš Konjević. He said that he talked about it with the representatives of Trebinje and that there is an upcoming discussion with the road concessionaire Universal Monte about models of how to achieve this.

And the President of the Municipality, Stevan Katic, recently said that they are also willing for the Municipality of Herceg Novi to buy out the existing contract, that is, for the state, instead of building a new border crossing with Bosnia and Herzegovina, to adapt the existing facilities at the toll plaza for these needs.

We remind you that the section of the Herceg Novi-Trebinje road, from Meljin to Petijević, with a length of 12,5 kilometers, was built in the middle of 2008. The road, which until then had a local character, gained international importance and the standard of the main road, but this was not officially verified by the Montenegrin Ministry of Transport. That is why many considered toll collection illegal. It was built as a public and private partnership, according to the BOT system, between the municipality of Herceg Novi and the Belgrade company Univerzal Holding, whose owner is Serbian businessman Vuk Hamović, that is, the company Univerzal Monte from Herceg Novi.

The entire investment cost 20 million euros, but the local opposition at the time, as well as part of the professional public, assessed that the entire arrangement was extremely unfavorable for the municipality. Based on the contract, the road was given to the investor for 20 years, after which it becomes the property of the municipality. In addition, the municipality gave Univerzal Holding 107 square meters of land at the Kotobilj location, where logging of the forest, which is a protected nature park, is prohibited. The contract stipulates that on both sides of the road in a zone of 000 meters, the right of construction belongs exclusively to the concessionaire. He announced the construction of two gas stations, restaurants, a parking lot, and a shopping center, but he did not realize anything. The terms of the contract were changed several times.

"If all the conditions had been known immediately after the tender was announced, at least ten more companies would have come forward," says one of the opposition councilors at the time, recalling that the German company Strabarg was also interested in the job.

According to some estimates, the concessionaire has earned more than 10 million euros from toll collection, because according to unofficial data, more than 2008 million vehicles have crossed the border between the two countries since 1,7.

The price of the toll is from three to 18 euros, depending on the vehicle category. For passenger cars it is three euros, and if the payment is made electronically using a special device, the price for this category of vehicle is 1 euros.

The concessionaire was still willing to sell that profitable investment. Two years ago, a representative of the then local government said that an "agreement with Vuk Hamović" had been reached. They asked for five million euros to give the concession to the Municipality of Herceg Novi, which at that time had no money. But she was willing to cede part of the land on Luštica instead of money. With the change of government in June of this year, the talks were not continued.

Katić: Open the border crossing at the toll booth

Katic recently said that they proposed to the representatives of the state that it take over the toll plaza on the Meljina Petijevići road and open a new border crossing between Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina there. According to their assessment, the facilities at the toll plaza have more conditions to be a border crossing than the one at Sitnica.

"We have a team of lawyers who review the existing concession contract, obligations and claims of both parties. We will review why the concessionaire did not build shopping centers, two gas stations, a restaurant - on that section of the road. We will also determine the amount that we could compensate," Katic said.

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