The Ministry of Osman Nurkovic (BS) reacted because Fidelity has published that Dean Capital Strategies from Vienna, which was engaged by MSP and IFC, established a year ago, has only one permanent employee, negative business result and is linked in its ownership structure with a company that is unsuccessfully engaged in the production of beer.
MSP attributed such claims to Fidelity as "inaccurate and malicious" and their statement as "political", pointing out that cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis for the airports was made by "Daniel Dean, former director of Raiffeisen Bank, and former vice president of Bank of Americ Merrill Lynch - an expert with over 20 years of experience in infrastructure financing around the world .."
"It may be a paradox, but it seems that the writer of the MSP's statement didn’t even read the Concession Act because it clearly states that the cost-benefit analysis was done by Dean Capital Strategies Gmbh and not by Mr. Daniel Dean as a physical person. In your statement, you have not denied what we wrote about Dean Capital Strategies Gmbh: that it has a negative capital and a huge loss. Also, you did not deny that the owner through the affiliated company is engaged in beer production, which is stated on the site of this company, "they said from Fidelity Consulting to MSP, rejecting any political motivation as a reason for their public engagement in the story of the concession for the airports. Fidelity, on their Facebook profile, wrote that the members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Montenegro were the first consultant company in Montenegro to have received NATO NCAGE code and that 98 percent of their revenues were generated by private companies and international organizations rather than the state and its companies. We have written that we are not against Valorization of the Airports of Montenegro, but that the figure ranging between 50 and 100 million euros for a one-off concession is simply too low. Is it a sin to ask the concessionaire to pay more to the state of Montenegro? And that's 93 million more than what it says in a concession act? Do SMEs enjoy Montenegro more than we are looking for more money for concessions?" asked Fidelity Consulting.
According to the analysis of Fidelity the Lessee can make a profit of up to 584 million: Airport Tivat PHOTO: Siniša Luković
They add that the government has proposed what they consider to be better for state interests - to keep the airports in the hands of the state, to bring more efficient management and airport development "as at Dubrovnik airport, with strong support from non-refundable EU funds"."Is it a sin to look for non-returning money that would be used to develop our infrastructure? Is it a sin that we want to transparently support the work of the national airline because it is indirectly responsible for generating a few hundred million euros of tourism revenue, and whose work can be endangered by a concession arrangement? ", asked the Fidelity Consulting MSP. They point out that this government secretly holds the famous analysis of Dean Capital and IFC, which states that it is better to give the airports on the concession. Dear Ministry, we ask the elementary question: why did not we get a detailed economic analysis as we were looking for, but we got the answer that the same is of internal character? We assure you that we would not do our rather detailed analysis (as you wrote the commissioned one) if we got the initial analysis based on which the concession act was prepared. We acknowledge that we can hardly understand that in your reaction you are not dealing with a consultant struggling to pay less money for the concession to Montenegro and attacking a local taxpayer who is struggling to pay throughout Montenegro at least € 100 million more for a concession arrangement. There is a huge feeling of nausea that remains because we (and still do not believe it) are overthrown with our ministry because we are looking for more money for the valorization of the national resources such as the Airports of Montenegro, "it is concluded in the Fidelity Consulting's response. Fidelity has previously carried out an analysis of ACG's business performance, the perspective of increasing the price of airport services in Montenegro, with an overview of the opportunities in the environment and the draft concession contract prepared by MSP for the airports. According to Fidelity's analysis, the future tenant of the airport in Tivat and Podgorica will realize a clean profit of at least 289 to 584 million euros, depending on the scenarios for increasing the number of passengers and increasing the amount of airport taxes and other revenues. MSP has prepared drafts of the concession act and concession contract for ACG that are put on public discussion till September 10th. To the lease of the airport is opposed a member of the ruling coalition, SD, as well as airport employees at Tivat airport, who have announced protests.
The World Bank (SB) supports the government's model for the valorization of the Montenegrin airports, the executive director in SB Frank Heemskerk said at a meeting with the Prime Minister Duško Marković. "Managing airports with public money is very expensive. The private-public partnership is a good model to increase traffic at the airports and increase their value, and public money is better to be allocated, for example, to the building of schools," Heemskerk said and reported by the government.
Heemskerk and Marković PHOTO: MNE Government
He added that his experience, as Minister of Tourism in the Netherlands, shows that growth of traffic at the airports is one of the key prerequisites for boosting tourism activities, increasing revenue and availability of the country. The government decided to offer Montenegrin airports to a concession, i.e. to lease them for a period of 25 to 30 years. Markovic thanked SB for the valorization of the airports and said that they are one of the biggest infrastructure potentials, but they are currently at a low level and are the bottleneck of the further development. "We want to change it in a short time. That is why we have chosen our partner to be IFC," Markovic said. He added that the attempt of discrediting the expert engaged by this renowned international financial organization is just a form of political struggle.
Text by Sinisa Lukovic, on September 7th, 2018, read more at Vijesti
