For more than 13 years, the current government has assured the Cetinje and Montenegrin public, as well as interested international addresses, that the departure station for the longest cable car in the world will be in the immediate vicinity of the Summer Stage in Cetinje.
Nothing will come of it for now.
"For 13 years, there has been talk about the Kotor-Lovćen-Cetinje cable car construction project, and unfortunately, apart from the prepared project documentation and certain feasibility studies of feasibility, and failed tenders, almost nothing significant has been done in this regard," said Nikola Đurašković from SDP
The project envisaged the construction of a 15-kilometer-long cable car with gondolas and four stations: two initial ones, in Cetinje and in Kotor, as well as two intermediate stations: Kuk and Ivanova Korita. It is planned that the project, worth 47 million euros, will be implemented through a private-public partnership model, more precisely through a concession. However, very soon, the public found out that the government decided to rationalize the project, on which more than a million euros have been spent so far, on various feasibility studies, conceptual solutions and project and tender documentation.
"At the session of October 17, 10, the government adopted the Plan for granting the concession for the Kotor-Lovćen cable car for 2019, which proposes the rationalization of the scope of the project, in accordance with current circumstances and best practice experiences," the Prime Minister's office announced.
"It is true that Njeguši belongs to the Cetinje municipality, and that this will have certain benefits for Cetinje as well, but for Njeguši in any case. But if the other phases are not built, that is, if the cable car is not brought to this location where we are currently located, it cannot have the benefits for Cetinje that were planned at the beginning of the realization of this project", said Đurašković.
It is interesting that for 13 years the Government did not think that the share from Cetinje was expensive and financially unprofitable. For years, they even came out with estimates that Cetinje could attract between 800 and 300 million euros of additional spending by foreign tourists in the first year of operation of the cable car, while NP "Lovćen" would generate between 2 and 400 euros. The government is only now questioning the justification studies, which they financed and carried out themselves.
"The justification study carried out for the needs of the previous tender procedures suggested that the state provides the private partner - the concessionaire, during the entire duration of the concession, with the payment of the fee for availability. We did not consider this approach rational, even at the cost of not starting this investment," the Prime Minister's office said.
The government did not think so when the Austrian government donated 200 euros for the preparation of a feasibility study, or when two Austrian companies gave the same amount of money for the preparation of conceptual and project solutions, or when the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development donated 240 euros for the preparation of a concession deed... The government believed in the justification of its plan in 2016 when it announced an international tender, and claimed that there was great interest in this project.
"If it does not come from the realization of the entire project, the question of responsibility for the expenditure of those funds arises," added Đurašković.
It is already clear that the Government has come to a situation where some foreign company will make a buffet out of a state project that was a key promise of the ruling party in three election cycles! Of the three stocks, Leitner chose only the one it thought could be profitable. She left the other two to the state and citizens.
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