Podgorica (13 February 2011) – Early next week MANS will submit to the president of the Privatization Council Igor Lukšić and the Chief State Prosecutor Ranka Čarapić financial statements belonging to the company “Cubus Lux” – which recently won the tender for a long-term lease of the Valdanos Bay near Ulcinj.
The financial statements of all the subsidiary companies associated with Cubus Lux will be available on the MANS website (www.mans.co.me) starting this Monday. We hope that at that point the former president of the Privatization Council who was responsible for this tender, Vujica Lazović, will stop with his attempts to deceive the Montenegrin public.
The financial statements being released will cover the period from 2003 to 2010. They show that Britain’s Cubus Lux only realized profits in one of those years; a fact that should have automatically disqualified it from becoming a candidate in the Valdanos tender. It’s losses in 2003 were 265,000 GBP, in 2004 they were 453,000 GBP, in 2005 they were 497,000 GBP, while in 2006-2007 the total losses were 130,000 GBP. The financial statement that is dated 31 March 2008, states that the company made 4.9-million GBP in profits during the preceding year. After that year, the financial statements for 2009 and 2010 indicate that the company recorded losses in the millions. The last half-year report for 2010 (released in September of that year) indicates losses of 1.4-million GBP.
From the above it should be clear that Cubus Lux could not have met the tender condition stipulating that any candidate should have avoided business losses in at least three of the past five calendar years. Unfortunately, these are the facts regardless of how hard Vujica Lazović is now trying to manipulate the public.
As far as the ten subsidiary companies that are associated with Cubus Lux are concerned – which Vujica Lazović referenced recently – their latest financial statements indicate that they are all in the red. Cubus Lux is therefore thinking of selling two of its subsidiaries in Croatia, including the ones operating the Olive Island marina and the casino in Pula. The financial statements also note that Cubus Lux is having difficulties in paying back its multimillion euro debts to the Hypo Albe Adria and Erste banks.
As far as banking guarantees are concerned for the Valdanos project, it would be good for Vice President Lazović to familiarize the Montenegrin public with all the details since their very existence is doubtful. In his statement last Friday, Lazović stated that: “in the framework of the Agreement there are guarantees for covering all the activities that the project foresees.” The day before we heard from the government that: “if the government does not receive guarantees in the Agreement, there will be no deal with this company.” We should therefore find out soon if these financial guarantees were actually secured or not.
At the same time, Cubus Lux’s statements following the tender indicate that the “company still has to secure the financing for the project and is expecting to obtain credits from local Montenegrin banks.” These are only some of the suspect details that the Chief State Prosecutor could investigate.
We believe that Cubus Lux’s own financial statements will be sufficient in convincing the new president of the Privatization Council Igor Lukšić to initiate proceedings to annul the tender decision for the Valdanos Bay. In addition to releasing the financial statements of Cubus Lux, MANS will also inform all the relevant international organizations that are following the situation in Montenegro about the details of the Valdanos affair.
