It is about the formal completion of what we started, which is to suppress smuggling, announced today the Prime Minister of Montenegro, Dritan Abazović.
He said this during a visit to the Bar Port Free Zone, where around 145.000 packs of cigarettes stored in the Bar Port, worth tens of millions of euros, are being confiscated today.
Abazović, Minister of Finance Aleksandar Damjanović, Minister of Internal Affairs Filip Adžić, Minister without Portfolio Zoran Miljanić and Director of the Revenue and Customs Administration (UPC) Rade Milošević are visiting the Bar Port Free Zone.
The Government announced earlier that they will visit the Port of Bar Free Zone after the UPC ordered Bar Customs to confiscate tobacco products in stock worth tens of millions of euros, without previously extending the deadline for storing tobacco products in the Free Customs Zone.
Cigarettes are confiscated because the deadlines for their removal have expired.
"Smuggling was the most profitable business in Montenegro. It is a business that weighs 500 million euros per year. It is important to restore the credibility of the Customs Administration, Port Bar. After implementing all the regulations and everything that was foreseen by the law, with the great support of the director of the Customs Administration, they came we are in a situation where over 100 packages become the property of the state," Abazović pointed out.
He added that their intention is to set up legal infrastructure and sell cigarettes and pump money into the budget.
"This was never a government job, it was a big scam that was marketed. We are ending this process today. The transportation process is starting which will last for several days. As we promised, we will fight against all types of crime and mafia. From today we with a high degree of certainty that cigarette smuggling through Luka Bar is clinically dead," Abazović said.
The Prime Minister said that he is happy that they have completely completed one phase.
"As far as actors and investigations are concerned, we encourage the competent institutions, the SDT and the Prosecutor's Office as a whole to undertake activities and discover what happened in the previous period. Our activities should be focused on legal businesses so that all citizens can benefit. There are numerous brands of cigarettes, these are not the cigarettes that are dominantly represented on the market. We will make a list of the complete goods," said Abazović.
Damjanović: The intention is to export the goods
The Minister of Finance, Aleksandar Damjanović, said that the intention is to export the goods that were found and will be moved from Montenegro after the inventory has been taken.
"It cannot be placed on our market. We are reaching the level where there is little space left for the non-light market. First, we will find mechanisms for the excise burden, so that it would make sense to take it out of Montenegro under full state supervision. That way we will generate revenue serious means," said Damjanović.
He added that the Port of Bar and the Free Zone, which had an ugly image, should get a new look.
"If the current legal burdens that are now on the market were to be applied to these goods, which are of lower quality, they would not have any economic viability," said the minister.
Abazović: It would be a tragedy if no one was ever held accountable for this
Abazović appealed to the MPs that this is "a common story of all citizens and political subjects and that they support the legal infrastructure that will enable us to generate income".
"I believe that none of the 81 MPs will be against such a solution. It would be a tragedy if no one is ever held accountable for this. Behind the smuggling of cigarettes is a lack of business ethics behind which a monopoly is hidden. Our idea is to try to level things and lead to a greater of social justice," said Abazović.
"Is there anything more logical, to pay part of the shortfall in the Fund from these goods"
Regarding the debt of the Healthcare Fund of 60 million euros, the Prime Minister said that this debt did not arise last year, that it is a decade-old debt and that he hopes it will be serviced in the correct way.
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"Is there anything more logical, that we pay part of the shortfall in the Fund from these goods that have become our property today. I am not putting pressure on it to be like that. In order for the state to survive, it must change its image," Abazović said.
Damjanović said that the legal solutions were not in favor of strengthening the Fund.
"Through the conversation and possible rebalancing, we will round it off, the Fund must return it. I hope that the Fund will get a credible person, I hope from the health sector," said Damjanović.
UPC did not extend the deadline for storing tobacco products in the Free Customs Zone, and the director of that institution, Rade Milošević, instructed the Customs Office to confiscate them.
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According to "Vijesti" information, there are a total of 165.612 packs of cigarettes in the Port of Bar, worth about 122 million euros (according to the recorded customs debt), and according to estimates, they are worth over 60 million euros on the black market.
Decisions on banning the storage of tobacco in the port were made by the Government in June and December last year, and the owners of cigarettes were extended the deadline to move them from the warehouse in the port.
After the extended deadlines for the export of tobacco products expired a few months ago, the UPC ordered the Bar Customs Office to confiscate the tobacco products in stock.
The Revenue Administration informed the Bar Customs Office that it should reject the requests for extension of the deadline of subjects who keep tobacco products in stock, and whose deadlines for taking out the goods have expired.
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