“Nega Tours Montenegro“ Company, the owner of the hotel “As“ in Perazica Do, at the end of 2014 showed that the value of the “real estate, facilities and equipment“ was €17.9 million. The question is how the government could “take for granted“ the investor’s claims that it had invested the whole €44 million in the hotel “As“.
The hotel was privatized in 2002, when it was sold to the Russian company “Nega Tours“ for €2.5 million, when the buyer committed to investing an additional €11 million in the hotel construction by the end of 2003. Since then, the government has extended the deadline for investment program several times. In the meantime, however, it has turned out that the buyer was not the Russian investor but a local businessman Nedjeljko Gardasevic.
Yet, the biggest issue is the fact that the agreement contains extremely harmful provision, which entitles the buyer to refund a part of the investment. In the information that has recently been submitted to the members of the Committee on Economy of the Parliament of Montenegro, with regard to the control hearing about the privatization of the hotel “As“, the investor claims to have invested €44 million in the hotel.
Judging by the official data from financial reports of the “Nega Tours Montenegro“, the investment of €44 million is completely implausible. In fact, at the end of 2014, the value of the “real estate, facilities and equipment“ of the company was €17.9 million, whereas in the financial report the individual values of the real estate, facilities and equipment was not shown.
The company’s financial report for 2015 is still unavailable, while earlier data from MANS Investigation Center show that in 2006, the value assessment of the site was made for the needs of the new owner. The site was assessed at €3.8 million. According to the official data from the Real Estate Administration website, over 35 thousand square meters of land (yard, fields and forests) and around six thousand square meters of facilities in Perazica Do was registered on “Nega Tours Montenegro“.
All those data seriously question the investor’s claims that in past years it has invested tens of millions of euro in the hotel in Perazica Do. For certain, neither financial reports nor the situation on the construction confirm the existence of the hotel, but only an unfinished concrete structure.
The privatization of hotel “As“ is one of the most controversial in the state. The decades of the buyer’s breach of the agreement have resulted in the announcement of the termination. However, the Ministry of Tourism and Sustainable Development, headed by Branimir Gvozdenovic, claims that the guarantee that the government could activate to get compensated for the investor’s failure to fulfill the obligations is not valid.
To this day, the government has no answer to the question why the buyer has been tolerated the failure to fulfill the investment obligations for years, or how it is possible that the guarantee was not verified and especially how much the budget and tourism in general suffered because the hotel has been closed for 14 years. Just to remind, the hotel, which had 110 rooms and 25 villas, used to be one of the most exclusive tourist facilities in Montenegro.
Criminal complaint filed in 2013
In 2013, MANS filed a criminal complaint to the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office because of a series of illegal acts during the sale of the hotel “As“ and the conclusion of an extremely harmful agreement with the buyer.
First of all, the buyer was enabled to register the title of property on the coastline, although that area is managed by the Public company for Coastal Zone Management. Due to the sales-and-purchase agreement, the buyer was given the possibility of being reimbursed for the investment, in the event of the termination of the agreement.
Furthermore, the investor was entitled to pledge the real estate for a loan after the registration. At the same time, it was guaranteed an exclusive application of the Law on Foreign Investment, although hotel had been sold through the privatization process.
The initial investment deadline, within which the investor was to invest €11 million, expired at the end of 2003. Yet, the government extended the deadline until May 2007. The buyer again failed to fulfill the agreed obligations, so the Government tolerated that failure again and extended the deadline until 2013.
This text is created with the support of the European Union within the project “Zero Tolerance to Corruption”. Network for Affirmation of Non-Governmental Sector – MANS is solely responsible for the contents of this article and the views taken herein shall not in any case be considered as those of the European Union.
