(Podgorica, 15 April 2012) – The decision of the Government of Montenegro to declare the property of the Ulcinj Saltworks an environmentally protected area, represents a victory primarily for the citizens of Ulcinj but also for the NGO sector and the independent media. This is a clear indication that pressure on the government can produce concrete results.
Public pressure on the government also ensured that attempts to illegally lease the Valdanos Bay be abandoned, which was supposed to ensure that at public cost – as in the case of the Saltworks – enormous profits be secured.
Nevertheless, both these cases showed that tycoons, whether domestic or foreign, have excellent partners in the Government of Montenegro, which is ready to act in others interests and ignore the will of Ulcinj’s citizens and their clear opposition to the devastation of this region and unseen plunder.
Ulcinj was for too long simply treated as a resource base from which things were only taken, while very little was returned to the community. This began with the sale of hotels and the privatization of firms, and included the paternalistic treatment of Uclinj’s coastal areas by the JP Coastal Property (which public firm that manages coastal lands in Montenegro). The privatization of hotels like Albatros, Galeb, Lido, Belvi, Otrant, as well as the companies Primorije, Agro-Ulcinj, Otrant komerc and many others, testifies to the misguided policies of the Government of Montenegro, which left without jobs many thousands of workers in Ulcinj (who had seen their futures bound up with the fate of these firms, as well as the future of Ulcinj’s economy).
The dismantling of the hotel enterprise Ulcinj Rivijera, and the inability of the government to adequately valorize the region of the Great Beach and the Ada Bojana coastline, marginalized Ulcinj and distanced it from healthy investments and the creation of new jobs.
The government brought “strategic investors” to Ulcinj, who instead of investing specialized in demolishing hotels, dismissing and intimidating workers, leading firms into bankruptcy, stripping their assets and turning a quick profit. All this took place without anyone being held accountable, without any penalties paid or the termination of any of these privatization agreements. No one in the government was held accountable either for signing such poorly conceived privatization deals, there are no investigations, no one has ended up in prison due to the fact that in spite of the enormous investment potential Ulcinj is today the poorest municipality on the coast.
For this reasons, these problems need to be resolved in a systematic way that should ensure that we do not have a repeat of Veselin Barović, Eurofond, Cubus Lux or Vujica Lazović. Someone must eventually shoulder the responsibility and be held to account for the fact that Ulcinj’s workers are paying for someone else’s bad decisions, kickbacks and so-called transition (which is essentially covering up the fact that this is nothing more than the most obvious plunder of anything that Ulcinj’s residents have carefully built over decades).
Ulcinj’s workers only want what their colleagues from all over Montenegro want, that is the possibility of working, to save their firms that they build with their own hands and through honest work create a future for their families. We believe that the future belongs to all of us, not only the small number of domestic and foreign tycoons who have already secured the interests of their families at the expense of the rest of us.
For this reason, we believe that the time has come for the voices of Ulcinj’s workers and citizens to be heard, who are no longer willing to be held hostage to the catastrophic policies of the Government of Montenegro. Ulcinj must no longer serve as a platform for the realization of the interests of domestic and foreign tycoons. It is time for Ulcinj’s workers and economy to join forces and send a message to the Government that they’ve had enough of plunder, false promises, shady investors and corruption, the devastation and destruction of much of what generations have built and that it is time for a new page.
MANS calls on Ulcinj’s NGO sector and independents to join the workers of Ulcinj and help us to jointly tell the Government of Montenegro, Prime Minister Lukšić and those he protects that they’ve had enough and that it is time for real changes.
