By the budget proposal for 2016, the Government opened up the possibility to offset at the expense of the state budget over eight million euros of mutual outstanding debts of the Montenegrin Electric National Enterprise (EPCG) and Montenegrin Transmission system (CGES), and also that income in these companies uses for new investments, which primarily can be correlated with the announcement of the construction of the second thermal power plant in Pljevlja.
In fact, Article 18 of the draft law on the budget for next year provides following “income arising from ownership and the profit of commercial entities owned by state of Montenegro in the field of energy can be used in 2016 for the regulation of mutual debtor-creditor relationship between these entities and new investments in the same companies”.
According to earlier official figures, mutual claims of two energy companies are worth over eight million euros. A recent audit report of CGES discovered that the company EPCG on the basis of fees for use of the transmission network claims 8.8 million, while claims of EPCG toward CGES are worth 8.1 million, and are relate to fees for hiring system reserves in the first half of 2013. year, created because of used electricity for the needs of the Aluminium Plant Podgorica (KAP).
According to the budget proposal for 2016, the Government now intends to, at the expense of all taxpayers, offset claims of two companies, which will actually mean that will take from the state budget for the umpteenth time in order to cover the obligations arising from the KAP, who was the reason, in the previous years, contrary to any public interest, hundreds of million of state money to be spent.
In addition, while the domestic public these days is informed that negotiations with the Czech company Skoda Praha on the construction of the second thermal power plant in Pljevlja are in the final stage, the Government with general provision proposes that income arising from property and profit in state energy companies can use to investments in them, thereby failing to offer to the members of the Parliament even elementary explanation on the model, conditions and amounts of the planned investments.
MANS repeatedly pointed out that the project of construction of the second block is very controversial and that its economic justification is extremely questionable. The total cost of the project, not only the construction of the second block, but also protection of the environment and human health, could exceed one billion euros, while even official data showed that in the narrower Pljevlja basin there is not enough coal reserves for the projected work of the new power plant for 40 years, not even if the advantage is taken of the so-called unprofitable deposits.
At the same time, EPCG and the Government never published a cost-benefit analysis that would really show that the project of building the second block would be in public, not private interest and energy lobbies, and for a long time manipulate irresponsibly with the data that the construction of the new power plant is needed because deficits of electricity, although this is not the case.
We emphasize that any participation of the state in the construction of the second thermal power plant in Pljevlja would mean covert and illegal state aid, as well as the international community, as opposed to our executive branch, makes plans to close the so-called dirty energy sources, actually existing power plants in order to be reduced emissions.
MANS regarding the draft law on the Budget for 2016, from the President of the Parliamentary Committee for Economy and Finance, Aleksandar Damjanovic, sought participation in the session, in order to indicate the number of problematic solutions that are contained in the most important economic law in the country. However, because of the arbitrariness and extremely unprofessional conduct of, allegedly, the members of the Parliament from the opposition, who undoubtedly usurps the function of the president of one of the key parliamentary committee, we are disabled to point out at many bad decisions that will, if adopted, will have negative consequences for the state budget.
Committee for Economy and Budget is the only Parliamentary committee which continuously denies access to MANS due exclusively to unilateral and unexplained decisions of Damjanovic, which is a practice not even used by committees headed by deputies of the ruling parties. We believe that these actions, in this case, because of personal vanity of Damjanovic, create the greatest benefit to the creators of this budget, preventing a higher quality of discussion about it.
MANS
