Podgorica (14 Feburary 2011) – Today MANS upon Prime Minister Igor Lukšić to immediately schedule a meeting of the Privatization Council in order to review the decision to lease the Valdanos Bay to Cubus Lux from Britain.
We suggest that PM Lukšić, who also acts as the president of the Privatization Council, follow up on the government’s new commitment to transparency by inviting NGOs and media organizations to this session so that they can testify to the irregularities in this case.
In the letter that MANS sent to Lukšić, alongside the financial statements for Cubus Lux, we highlighted our concern that the company that had won the tender didn’t even meet the basic conditions stipulated therein. The whole process was carried out in a non-transparent way and violated key elements of a credible tender processes.
Cubus Lux’s financial statements are available on the MANS website since this morning (at www.mans.co.me). The documents prove that the company has continuously been operating at a loss, that it lacks the necessary experience in hotel management, that it does not meet the minimum revenue stream conditions nor those stipulating the minimum capital that any tender candidate should have at its disposal.
We expect that Lukšić will ensure that all the relevant facts are established in order to clarify how a company that failed to fulfill any of the essential criteria in the tender ended up winning the Valdanos Bay deal.
MANS also shared Cubus Lux’s financial statements with Ranko Krivokapić, the President of the Assembly of Montenegro, since he heads the institution responsible for exercising oversight over the executive authorities and how state property is being managed. MANS called on Krivokapić to undertake all those measures that he has at his disposal as head of parliament to ensure full complience with the law, in accordance with the public interest, in the Valdanos affair.
The financial statements were also shared with the Chief State Prosecutor, Ranka Čarapić, as an addendum to the criminal charges that MANS filed against Vujica Lazović last week based on allegations that he abused his position as the former head of the Privatization Council during the tender.
