Podgorica (22 February 2011) – After nearly a month of waiting we’ve finally received an answer from the Privatization Council stating that one of its employees had “lost” our request for access to the tender documentation and that we should resubmit it – which would only further delay the Council’s eventual response.
This is yet another piece of evidence demonstrating how the Government of Montenegro and the Privatization Council are actively trying to sabotage all efforts to make the tender process for Valdanos more transparent and thus avoid explaining to the public how Cubus Lux won the tender.
MANS submitted to the Privatization Council a set of freedom of information requests in early February concerning the tender procedure for the Valdanos lease, for which there still hasn’t been an answer, even though the legal deadlines for responses to such requests have expired.
In its February 4th requests MANS asked for the entirety of the tender documentation for Valdanos, including any evidence that would indicate that Cubus Lux had proved that in the last year it had realized revenues of at least 100-million euros, that in the last three of five calendar years it had realized positive financial results, etc. (all of which were conditions that should have disqualified Cubus Lux).
We also asked of the Privatization Council to grant access to Cubus Lux’s letter of intent for the development of Valdanos and to demonstrate that they had experience of managing at least two hotel resorts of at least four stars that meet international standards.
Besides this, MANS demanded from the Council access to a copy of the investment plan with financial guarantees that Cubus Lux should have submitted with its bid, since this was one of the criteria for judging the eventual outcome. We haven’t received a response from the Council in relation to this request either, although both the government and Cubus Lux have admitted that there aren’t currently any financial guarantees.
It is particularly worrying that the Government and its high functionaries are investing more effort into hiding this information from the public and openly lobbying in the interests of Cubus Lux than they are ready to publicly come clean with how it even managed to win the tender.
This behavior by individual members of the government opens an enormous space for the suspicion that this deal will not only be lucrative for Cubus Lux but potentially also for individual members of the government.
We believe that if everything about the deal was done cleanly and in accordance with the law there would be not barrier to having the government make public all the information tied to the Cubus Lux bid. Unfortunately, instead of concrete information, the public is being treated to fairy-tales about mass employment, millions of euros in investments, the general good and the flourishing of Ulcinj as a municipality and the whole of the country.
Let us understand that the Valdanos case represents the first serious challenge for the administration of the new Prime Minister when it comes to the alleged transparency of his government, which is a point of pride for Lukšić’s cabinet. Luckily, when it comes to Cubus Lux things are pretty clear and Lukšić as the president of the Privatization Council could quickly end these violations of the law, only if he really wanted to (of course).
