Today, NGO MANS filed a criminal complaint against Blažo Šaranović, Director of the Property Directorate, Dragan Kovačević, Slavko Simović and Zoran Senić, members of the Commission for Assessment of Real Estate and other NN persons – officials of the executive power, all due to suspicion of abuse of office in the sale of state land on the hill Mihinja to Čelebić company.
There are suspicions that the reported persons as co-perpetrators, in an organized manner, used the state property in contravention to the law and enabled Čelebić company the acquisition of ownership of over 165 thousand square meters of state-owned land, without a tender, and at a price that was several times lower than the market price, and thus caused damage to the state, while enabling “Čelebić” company acquisition of unlawful material gain.
Namely, NGO MANS Investigative Centre published an investigative story a couple of days ago about the real estate exchange between Čelebić company on one side, and the Government of Montenegro/Property Administration on the other. The agreed exchange meant that Čelebić company would give the Government five business premises in its building near the Basic Court for permanent residence of the State Archives, and in return would receive 165,000 square meters of state land on the Mihinja hill, at the exit from Podgorica towards Cetinje, and an additional €150 thousand. However, the collected documentation shows that the work was planned much earlier, that Čelebić company managed to parcel a huge state property and divide it into smaller lots, which were later located within the boundaries of urban parcels along with the land of a small area compared to the state land, which Čelebić company got in the meantime. The conditions for the implementation of the system of completion of urban plots were then created, which implies a direct contract and sale without a tender. In this case, that was the clear interest of Čelebić company, since the construction of tens of thousands of square meters of residential space is planned at that location, the sale of which opens space for achieving significant profit.
When the company owned by a businessman Tomislav Čelebić offered the state to buy the land, through a public tender or through the aforementioned system of completion, the Property Administration opted for the completion, although the practice when the private owner of a smaller part of the land within the urban plots purchases a larger part of state land without a public tender, in addition to providing lower income for the state, also proved to be extremely harmful to the public interest. The assessment of the value of the state land done by the reported persons Kovačević, Simović and Senić was done by neglecting key facts, such as that it is an urbanized land, which means that the capital of Podgorica is obliged to provide it with utility equipment, but also to build roads and provide connections for electricity and water. The abovementioned assessment is controversial because the value of the state-owned land is estimated between five and eight Euros per square meter, although the price of a square meter of similar land on the market was around €40, which was also in the interest of the Čelebić company.
All aforementioned raises a suspicion that these are pre-arranged actions of the reported persons by which the law is played and the tender procedure for the sale of state property avoided, in order to enable Čelebić company to get the valuable construction land by a direct deal, at prices that are significantly lower than their market value.
We expect the state authorities to timely, and based on available and clear legal powers, determine the extent to which these actions damaged the public interest, to organize hearing for each reported person, but also to examine the possible influence of the responsible persons of the Čelebić company on the reported person and other persons who made decisions at the expense of the public interest in favour of Čelebić company.
MANS
