The Maltese company International Renewable Energy Development (IRED), the owner of the Wind Power Plant, the jointly owned Finnish Fortum and the Montenegrin Electricity Company and the Montesolar Consortium, applied for the construction of solar power plant (SE) at the location Briska Gora in Ulcinj. According to unofficial information, this consortium is made up of Sungreenpower from the French group, Montenegrin Bemax, as well as Sunderland and Solar Corporation.
The Ministry said to that bearing in mind that this project is unique in the region and beyond, three offers are more than a good result. Tender documentation was purchased by 11 companies.
They say that the opening of the bids and the statement of its formal validity was completed on Monday and all bids meet the criteria in the relevant part. They did not want to answer the question of what they contain, because "at this point it is not possible to comment, bearing in mind that the deadline is 30 days from the opening of the bids."
The Director of the MANS Research Center Dejan Milovac believes that the Ministry did not want to discover who is hiding behind one of the three bidders as it is just a continuation of the non-transparent practice when it comes to using state resources.
"We believe that citizens have every right to know who a potential tenant of more than six million square meters of their country’s territory is, and under which conditions this lease will be realized," Milovac said.
Milovac PHOTO: Archive "Vijesti"
He says that the starting price at which land is offered for a long-term lease is inappropriately low. "What further adds to these doubts is the absence of even the most basic projections of how the solar power plants will generate benefits for local communities, and even how many new jobs will be opened," Milovac said. He adds that even if the state does not subsidize the production of electricity from the solar panels as claimed by the Ministry, the draft contract foresees the state's obligation to buy electricity from SE, regardless of the current energy surplus or deficit in the state. The tender for land lease due to SE construction greater than 200 MW was announced at the end of May. The starting price of annual land tenure is five cents per square. The right to participate in the tender has all domestic and foreign persons and companies, as well as consortia, if, inter alia, have experience in building SE cumulative installed power of 400 MW or more and at least one of 100 MW power or greater.
The Ministry says the criteria should only be the extra motive for more domestic companies to submit their offer through a consortium in cooperation with foreign partners. "Also, in this way, we wanted to encourage foreign investors to include domestic companies, all in order to get the best bids," the ministry said.
With a close look at the list of candidates for this big investment, it is immediately concluded it is a case of the well-known names from the domestic scene that are into electrics as much as "grandma Marta led by the domestic Maltese knights", said representative of minority shareholders of EPCG Vasilije Miličković.
He believes that the interest of citizens, state, EPCG companies and employees are that EPCG with its own funds finances all concession points of small hydropower plants, wind and solar power plants.
"For all this, there was enough money on the EPCG account, but there would be no domestic players, there would be no corruption, and then it's not DPS, and it's not our reality we are accustomed to for a long time, thanks to the incapable, incompetent and corrupted opposition that is satisfied with crumbs from the table of Milo Djukanovic, which means a lot to them," Miličković pointed out.
Miličković PHOTO: PR Centar
He reminded about the earlier case that for getting a concession for construction of the wind power plant at Možura, a five-millionth award was promised and that the court proceedings are still underway today, and that Djukanovic has gone to Malta and hence announces that one of the Maltese knights will invest 50 million euro in the wind power, whose cost will be paid by the citizens. He considers that EPCG's deal with the purchase of coal mining and the assumption of all its obligations would ultimately cost more than EUR 80 million, and that it was better to use that money to buy A2A shares, after which the tender would be launched to recapitalize EPCG, and Montenegro with a billion which would enter the country, would become the largest investment site in renewable energy sources and solar energy. The Finnish sought cooperation with EPCGEPCG and claims that a renowned Finnish company has addressed them with a request for co-operation in this project.
"After a detailed analysis, the management of the company turned to the Board of Directors who gave the green light for this business decision. So, the participation of our consortium at the public tender of the Ministry of Economy has passed through, for the time being, all competent authorities of the company. In case we get this business engagement, the decision on further implementation of the project is verified by the Assembly of Shareholders, so there is no statement that anything is done behind the eyes of the public but in accordance with the company's business policy and the Statute of the company, "answered from EPCG to" Vijesti " how did EPCG co-operate with the Finnish company regarding the participation in a solar power tender, on who and when this arrangement was concluded far away from the public eye and small EPCG shareholders, since such a thing had never been discussed at the Assembly of shareholders.
Text by Biljana Matijasevic and Milorad Milosevic, on September 5th, 2018, read more at Vijesti
