The first of a total of six ferries for which the public company Morsko dobro from Budva has received the government's green light for immediate purchase or rental, the ship "Prizna", should arrive in Boka Kotorska by the end of this week, "Vijesti" has learned.
According to unofficial information, Morsko dobro already bought this ship in Croatia, which was recently scrapped by the local state shipping company "Jadrolinija" from Rijeka due to its age and insufficient capacity.
"Prizna" was purchased by "Jadrolinija" in 1991 as the last ferry that that company acquired during the former SFRY, and until a few years ago this small coastal navigation ferry was in the fleet of the Croatian state shipping company sailing on the line between the port of Prizna in the Podvelebit Channel and the port Žigljen on the Pag estuary, i.e. between Biograd and the port of Tkon on the island of Pašman.
Both lines are significantly longer in one direction and the ride on them takes three, or more than four times longer than the seven-minute ferry ride on the Kamenari-Lepetane line in Boka.
History of the ship
Due to the obsolescence and insufficient capacity for transportation needs on the lines on which it used this ferry until now, "Jadrolinija" recently sold "Prizna" to the company ABM Tours from Neviđan in Pašman.
By the way, this ship was built in 1970 in Sweden at the Kalmar Varv A/B shipyard in Kalmar as new construction 428 under the name "FÄRJA 61/290" for Svenska Staten Vägverk. In 1982, the ship was bought by Lundby Industri & Handels A/B, so the ferry was renamed "GODSFÄRJA 61/290" with the port of entry Gothenburg, and nine years later this ferry of 354 gross tons, length 65, width 11,7 and draft of 2,2 meters, came to the Adriatic when "Jadrolinija" bought it and gave it a new name "Prizna".
In 2016, the ship was reconstructed with the addition of a new passenger deck above the main vehicle deck, and its engines were also changed. Although it is 53 years old, which makes it older than half of the ships in the fleet of six ferries of the company "Pomorski sabrojc" from Kamenar, which until recently was the operator of the line across the Verige Strait, well-informed circles say that "Prizna" is in excellent technical condition. . This ship, which can carry up to 60 cars and 330 passengers, with a maximum speed of eight knots, is powered by two Scania diesel engines with a total power of 1.000 horses.
The purchase of the ship, which is one of the rare vessels available for sale or rent in Croatia with still valid papers and passenger ro-ro ship (ferry) class, was carried out by Morsko dobro under conditions unknown to the Montenegrin public.
At the session on Friday, the government gave consent to the Maritime Authority to purchase or lease up to six ferries for the only ferry line that the state-owned company has been officially managing since February 18, under the urgent public procurement procedure.
"Pomorski sabožeb" has maintained the ferry line in Boka for decades, and the last legal basis for this was the contract that "Pomorski sabožeb" then still a state-owned company concluded in February 2004 with Morski dobro on the lease of the operating banks of the ferry docks in Lepetani and Kamenari.
A few months later, "Marine Transport" was privatized without a public tender, by purchasing state shares on the stock exchange in 2004. For that company, the company "Prohouse" of Podgorica businessmen brothers Dušan and Dejan Ban and Željko Mihailović, paid 1,2 million euros to the state, of which only 680 thousand euros in cash, and the rest in old foreign currency savings bonds that it previously bought at discounted prices .
For the maintenance of the line, which brought them millions of revenues, the owners of Maritime Transport paid Morska Dobr a fee in the amount of four percent of the revenue from the sold train tickets, which amounted to between 2004 and 200 thousand euros per year, according to the contract from 300. The contract expired at the end of 2018, and in August of the following year, the Government of Prime Minister Duško Marković (DPS) extended it until further, i.e. until the selection of the concessionaire who will be entrusted with the long-term operation of the ferry, by an annex to the contract from 2004.
Everyone "forgot" the conclusion
That annex formally covered the period from January 1, 2019 to August of that year. A ferry line can only be granted under the Concession Act. That law also existed in 2019, and the then Government was then able to initiate the concession award procedure.
This is by the conclusion of the Government, which extended the duration of the contract to Maritime Transport until the moment of the concession award and was made an obligation to the then Ministry of Transport and Maritime Affairs, but first the then minister Osman Nurković, and then his successors Mladen Bojanić and Ervin Ibrahimović did nothing to fulfill that obligation. .
The provisions of the annex define the situations when Morsko dobo can unilaterally terminate the contract.
It is not known to the public that any of these situations occurred until February 15 of this year, when the Board of Directors of the state-owned company headed by Blažo Rađenović (URA) adopted the conclusion that the contract with "Maritime Traffic" "ceased to be valid", and due to of which the company of the Ban brothers announced that they would sue the state and seek compensation. "Marine traffic" submitted a request to the Commercial Court for the imposition of a temporary measure, which would return the Kamenari-Lepetane line to the company, until the final settlement of the lawsuit it will initiate against the state due to, in their opinion, the illegal termination of a valid contract.
Over the past 19 years, the owners of "Pomorski sabrojka" have made millions of profits, but they have also increased the fleet, which includes two completely new larger ferries "Grbalj" in 2009 and "Teodo" in 2011. The ferries of this company stopped plying on the Kamenari-Lepetane line at midnight on February 17, because on that day they received a letter from the Maritime Ministry that the contract and its annex "ceased to be valid". Since then, Morsko doro has been transporting passengers with the small ferry-ship "Vasilije", which was given to it free of charge by the construction company "Briv Construction".
"Vasilije", which was built in 1978, was not registered as a passenger ship (ferry), but a cargo ship for the transport of construction operations, and Morsko dobro is not registered for carrying out ferry activities, which is why it does not charge users of "Vasilije" services for transportation , nor are the cars and passengers traveling on that ship currently covered by mandatory insurance. All these irregularities have so far not provoked a reaction from the competent inspections and they are not taking the measures that they apply under regular circumstances.
The Technical Inspectorate of the Maritime Safety and Port Management Administration of Montenegro last week carried out an extraordinary technical inspection of "Vasilija", whose deficient rescue equipment was quickly supplemented by the urgent purchase of missing life belts and lifebuoys, so the ship was officially certified for carrying out the overseas transport of vehicles and passengers.
On Friday, the government reached a conclusion according to which Morsko dobro will rebalance its budget in the next 30 days, in order to provide money for the purchase of the ferry. Since the complete budget of that state-owned company for 2023 amounts to 7.800.000 euros, which is nowhere near enough to buy six used ferries, let alone new ones, it remains to be seen how well Morsko will carry out the task entrusted to him by the Government to replace the entire fleet the current operator of the ferry line in Boka and citizens and tourists in time for the season, provide at least an approximately quality service on that line.
Novaković-Đurović and Morsko keep silent
The Government and Morsko dobro, although they promised, did not answer the questions sent to them by "Vijesti" last Sunday regarding numerous illogicalities, improvisations and open illegalities in the process of taking over the ferry line in Boka.
Morsko dobro and the Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism (MEPU), which is headed by Rađenović's party colleague Ana Novaković-Đurović (URA), did not answer the question of how the Government, on the proposal of that Ministry, designated the Morsko dobro, which is not registered, nor does it have the personnel or technical capacities to is engaged in this activity, to take over the maintenance of the only ferry line in the country. The Ministry also remained silent on the question of which article of the Law on Maritime Resources the Government found a basis for obliging Maritime Resources to take over the organization and maintenance of the functioning of the ferry line.
The Maritime Administration did not explain how on February 15 they reached conclusions stating that the 2004 Agreement on the Use of Maritime Assets with "Maritime Transport" with the 2019 annex "ceased to be valid when such a thing is not in accordance with Articles 10 and 11 of the Law on Maritime Property, i.e. the Treaty itself and the Annex.
"Specifically, which provisions of the Agreement from 2004 and its Annex from 2019, according to Morski dobr, was violated by "Marine Traffic" so that the arrangement could be unilaterally terminated", is a question that was not answered by the state-owned company, nor was the request to explain why Rađenović misled the public on February 18, claiming that the "Vasilije" on the Kamenari-Lepetane line appeared two hours late due to the alleged occupation of the entire operational coast of the ferry pier in Kamenari by the bound ships of the "Marine Transport" and, therefore, the impossibility of docking "Vasilija" at that pier, when it was not true, and for which there is video and photo evidence.
The founding assembly of Maritime Dobro, and the Government changes the statute
In the whole story about the ferries in Boka, the departmental Ministry of Capital Investments, whose competence is the maritime economy, but also the maritime administration system, is not included in the whole story, while it is dealt with by the non-competent Ministry of Ecology, MEPU and Marine Resources, which is not at all qualified, nor registered to carry out maritime operations. activities.
On February 17, the government gave its consent to the amendment of the Maritime Property Statute, which, as explained, provides a legal basis for the company to now also engage in ferry activities. The government did this even though it is not the official founder of this state-owned company, it is the Parliament of Montenegro.
The Statute now states that, in addition to the company's predominant activity related to real estate management for a fee, Morsko dobro can engage in "maritime and coastal passenger transportation" as well as "passenger transportation by inland waterways." However, the ferry business is not only the transportation of passengers, but also of goods (vehicles and cargo in them), which means that the Government, at the suggestion of the management of the Sea Dobr, again adopted a legally deficient amendment to the Statute, which does not allow this company to register for carrying out ferry transportation. These two institutions, when asked by journalists, did not want to comment on this either.
The Government did not even answer the question why in this whole case they acted contrary to the official opinion and recommendation of the institution of the Protector of Property and Legal Interests of Montenegro, which, at the request of the Ministry of Ecology, in May of last year, recommended to the Government not to unilaterally terminate the arrangement with "Maritime Traffic ” because in this way the state exposes itself to a high risk of paying high compensation claims.
"Who in the Government will be held personally responsible for acting contrary to the opinion of the Protector of Property and Legal Interests of Montenegro and for possible high financial compensations that the state could certainly pay to "Marine Transport" as a result, if that company sues", is another question on which "Vijesti" did not receive a response from the cabinet of Prime Minister Dritan Abazović.
Although it is 53 years old, well-informed circles say that the "Prizna" is in excellent technical condition. This ship can carry up to 60 cars and 330 passengers, with a maximum speed of eight knots
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