(Podgorica, 29 April 2013) – Today MANS called on Montenegro’s MPs to reject the SNP’s proposals, supported by the ruling DPS, for resolving the current crisis in Montenegro’s aluminum producer (KAP). Anything short of a full investigation into the origins of the KAP’s debts, and into the government’s role in tacitly approving the enormous extraction of wealth from the firm, would represent a brutal manipulation of the public and further concessions to the Russian tycoons who own the firm.
The SNP’s proposal is simply a repackaged version of the government’s own plan to grant further concessions to CEAC at the expense of citizens. This ‘oppositional’ solution, which mirrors its own, is being supported by the government in order to give the appearance of democratic decision-making and to signal the government’s readiness to hear ‘opposing’ points of view. In reality, the proposal represents a time-bomb planted within Montenegro’s parliament as well as in the hands of citizens (expected to, once again, subsidize the bank-accounts of the foreign tycoons associated with KAP).
The proposal of the Parliament’s Committee on the Economy, Finances and the Budget – submitted by the SNP – essentially gives the government a free hand to continue negotiations with the KAP’s offshore owner CEAC. This essentially means continuity with the failed strategies of the past. The total lack of oversight of the government’s dealings with CEAC have led to the current situation in which the fiscal pressure created by government guarantees to the KAP’s creditors had to be resolved through the imposition of new taxes. Currently the government is considering further tax hikes by raising the VAT to 19% and placing the burden of repaying these debts on all citizens.
The SNP’s proposals, supported by the DPS, fail to address any of the KAP’s basic problems, let alone protecting the public interest (which has been ignored for years in this case). In order to gain short-term political advantage, and score “cheap political points,” the SNP is advocating business as usual regardless of how the break with CEAC is made.
We understand that the DPS is not too worried about the exact manner in which the CEAC agreement will be annulled, though we thought that (at least publicly) this would have been a serious concern for opposition parties. We already know that the different options before the Parliament on resolving the crisis at KAP may cost citizens tens-of-millions of additional euros.
It’s also hard to understand how individual opposition MPs can commit themselves to severing the contract, paying off the Russian owners, and taking over KAP, without ensuring beforehand that state prosecutors and police are able to investigate the origins of KAP’s debts. For years, the KAP accumulated debts while income was systematically being syphoned-off through a series of offshore firms. We can understand the DPS’ desire to close the deal quickly and put the whole matter behind them, given their responsibility for overseeing the agreement in the first place, but cannot understand the stance of ‘opposition’ MPs who constantly invoke the public interest, law and justice.
Instead, the SNP’s proposals, supported by the DPS, involve taking over the aluminum factory for an enormous sum of money from its current owners; thereby, assuming ownership over old technology and greater debts than when the firm was first privatized. All of this is to be subsidized at the expense of Montenegro’s citizens.
As for the KAP’s considerable electricity bills, the SNP proposal is to also leave this for the state (and hence citizens) to resolve. The SNP proposal states that “an appropriate model for settling the KAP’s debts towards the EPCG be found.” We already know that the KAP’s management has repeatedly said that they do not have the money to settle these debts. Until now this gap has been covered by citizens, who are effectively subsidizing the KAP’s theft of electricity through higher energy bills.
Once again, we’d expect such reasoning to come from the DPS since it was their officials who negotiated the EPCG’s subordination to KAP. However, we expected that so-called opposition MPs would demand accountability for decisions leading to the accumulation of the KAP’s enormous debt towards the EPCG. These policies have brought into question Montenegro’s position in the regional energy system. Instead of demanding accountability, the SNP is committing itself to a renewed arrangement between the EPCG and the KAP, regardless of the fact that the factory has chronically ignored its obligations in the past.
The support of KAP at any cost, even at the expense of the public interest, is a thesis that has been forwarded by the Government of Montenegro for years (particularly by the ruling DPS). This is also the position of the SNP, regardless of the costs involved to date and in the future of such a policy.
In so far as the KAP lacks future prospects, we believe it is better that the money be spend on substantial severance packages for the factory’s workers, instead of placing additional public money into the pockets of its Russian owners. Pushing the KAP into bankruptcy proceedings and leaving workers with severance is a more affordable solution than insisting on the maintenance of KAP at any cost (including increased impositions on Montenegro’s citizens).
MANS calls upon the MPs of the Bosniak Party and Albanian political parties to think about how the funds being proposed would better be spent in their own communities before voting to gift tens-of-millions euros more to Russian tycoons. When casting their votes, these MPs should keep in mind the workers of Rozaje, Plav and Ulcinj, Breane, Bijelo Polje and Pljevlja, as well as other cities and the dozens of factories that were closed-down without any assistance, while the state continued to subsidize the debts of the KAP’s Russian tycoons. We are likewise calling on MPs from Zeta to ask their constituents what life is like living next to the aluminum smelter and what the effects of this policy have been on agriculture when compared to all the privileges granted to the Russian owners.
MANS is also calling on the SNP’s MPs to decisively reject the attempts to once again grant concessions to the KAP’s owners, who have spent years enriching themselves at the expense of Montenegro’s citizens. Instead they should demonstrate their concern for the public interest by breaking with the party’s more corrupted MPs.
MANS also calls on Montenegro’s Assembly to publicly take on the proposal in order to reveal who exactly are the MPs that are supporting this non-solution for Montenegro and its peoples.
