The Minister of Capital Investments, Mladen Bojanić, did not vote for the contract with ENI/Novatek consortium in 2016 while he was an independent MP in the Parliament of Montenegro. Therefore, the public’s interest to know what motivates Bojanić now, five years later, to energetically defend what was obviously a product of DPS and Milo Đukanović’s government, is perfectly legitimate.
The contract with ENI/Novatek was adopted at the end of June 2016, predominantly by the votes of the then ruling coalition, at a debate in which the opposition sharply criticized the intention of the Government of Montenegro to conclude another corrupt deal that is harmful to its citizens.
The then opposition compared the deal to the privatization of Telekom, criticized signing of contract with Dutch offshore companies and warned of the danger that it could become a way to extract hundreds of millions of euros from the country, as was the case with previous deals arranged by DPS.
During nearly five hours of the parliamentary debate, the then independent MP Mladen Bojanić did not say a single word regarding the contract with ENI/Novatek, so it would be good for the public to know the reasons as to why, when deciding on this deal, he did not publicly support the plans of DPS as he does now from the position of the Minister of Capital Investments.
Instead, Minister Bojanić is now defending himself by saying that it was a decision of the Parliament of Montenegro, although he knows very well that not a single MP of the current parliamentary majority, thanks to whose support he found himself in the minister’s chair, voted for the contract with ENI/Novatek.
The new Montenegrin government has promised the citizens an audit of all contracts concluded by the previous regime, while on the other hand, Minister Bojanić confidently claims that everything is fine regarding the two major projects such as oil exploration and highway construction worth hundreds of millions of euros.
We are sorry that Minister Bojanić did not use his statement to explain to the citizens why he has so much trust in the business of the former regime, but instead chose to resort to the most impudent rhetoric of typical DPS ministers, who have always justified the lack of courage to publicly state their position on the issue with the so-called party discipline.
In that sense, it is unfair to compare Bojanić even with Branimir Gvozdenović, because at least he did not hide behind the decisions of those structures against which he had allegedly fought for years.
Bearing in mind that the new parliamentary majority announced back in 2016 that it would terminate this contract when it came to power, it is clear that Bojanić’s intention to continue promoting DPS business cannot have majority support in the parliament.
Therefore, we believe that it is necessary to adopt a moratorium on the further implementation of this contract until its validity is examined by the relevant EU experts who have much more knowledge and experience in this area.
MANS
