President of the Municipality of Budva Nikola Jovanovic and acting director of the company "Otpadne vode" Mladen Lakcevic They concluded a ten-year contract under which 1,8 million euros will be paid from the city treasury this year for the work of the municipal company, which has been entrusted with the management of the wastewater treatment plant in the Bečići settlement of Vještice.
The contract, which "Vijesti" has had access to, needs to be given the green light by the local parliament, and the decision on granting approval must be made by the President of the Municipal Assembly. Petar Odžić included it on the agenda of the parliamentary session scheduled for May 27th.
"The subject of the contract is the entrustment of certain municipal activities carried out on the territory of the municipality of Budva, in accordance with the Statute of DOO "Otpadne vode" Budva. This concerns the treatment of household wastewater and water of similar composition from public sewage and their discharge into the recipient, treatment and disposal of sewage sludge, operation of sewage systems and wastewater treatment devices, collection and transport of industrial, municipal and other wastewater, as well as rainwater using sewage networks, collectors, mobile tanks and other forms of transport," the contract states.
Also, the company "Otpadne vode" is contractually obligated to treat, or purify, wastewater (including sewage and industrial wastewater and water from swimming pools) using physical, chemical and biological processes.
The contract includes the removal of waste material and the performance of preparatory activities within the framework of waste recycling, i.e. sorting waste for further processing.
"This contract is concluded for a period of 10 years. Wastewater will perform the entrusted activities with the existing infrastructure, and the Municipality of Budva is obliged to provide for the use of the existing communal infrastructure, such as the wastewater treatment plant with accompanying facilities and gravity pipeline, pumping stations "Zeps", "Belvi", "Budva" with associated pressure pipelines," the contract states.
The Municipality of Budva, as stated in the contract, undertakes to pay "Otpadni vode" 1.800.000 euros for current and operational business costs.
The payment will be made, as stated, in the following manner: three installments (for January, February, March) in the total amount of 450.000 euros, while the remainder in nine equal installments in the amount of 150.000 euros each for the period from April to December.
"The Municipality of Budva is obliged to enable "Otvadnje vode" to transport sewage sludge from the plant unhindered and regularly. In order to ensure that the transport and disposal of sewage sludge is carried out unhindered and continuously, without jeopardizing the technological process of wastewater treatment at the plant, the Municipality agrees that "Otvadnje vode" may, if necessary, conduct a public procurement procedure itself and conclude a separate contract for the disposal and transport of sludge," the contract states.
At the beginning of October last year, the Budva Municipal Assembly adopted a Settlement Agreement on mutual rights and obligations between the Municipality and the Budva Waterworks and Sewage Works on the one hand and WTE Wassertechnik GMBH, Budva Wastewater DOO, WTE Sea Water Desalination DOO and Beteiligung 52 asset solutions GMBH on the other, which obliges it to pay 3,5 million euros to companies from the German WTE group from Essen and thus close disputes before international and domestic courts.
The settlement agreement stipulates that the Municipality of Budva will make a payment in the total amount of 3.500.000 euros, in four equal installments of 875.000 euros each, the first by November 30, 2025, the second by December 30, 2025, the third by February 15, 2026, and the fourth by March 15, 2026.
The controversial facility, which has been under the scrutiny of the Special State Prosecutor's Office, is one of a series of projects by the fugitive organized crime group. Svetozar Marović, which caused damage to the citizens of Budva for several million euros. The corruption scandal was never fully investigated, although a series of criminal charges were filed against former leaders of the Municipality, as well as representatives of a German company.
Government guarantees of 29,3 million euros threaten to paralyze the city
Although the Municipality of Budva has concluded a settlement agreement, it is still burdened with tens of millions of euros, which could financially paralyze the city. Namely, the Government of Montenegro has continued the court process to prove that the Municipality of Budva is obliged to return 29,3 million euros, which it paid to the German-Austrian concern WTE/EVN, which was building a wastewater treatment plant, at the end of December 2019, as a state guarantee. This is expected in the Municipality, after the Higher Court overturned the verdict of the Kotor Basic Court and returned it for re-determination, which required the tourism metropolis to return the million-dollar sum that the then Government of Prime Minister Duško Marković paid to a foreign company, which then packed its bags and abandoned the plant in a disastrous state in January 2020.
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