On the other hand, the Municipality of Herceg Novi has engaged a Law office to represent them and requests the involvement of the Dispute Settlement Commission. If this does not work, the next step is arbitration.
Namely, the Turks first asked for nine million from the municipality, however, Dahlem, who also supervised the works, stated that the Turks could seek 3.2 million euros. Vice president of the Municipality Danijela Đurović told “Dnevne novine” that the process of determining the quality of the works will begin on Friday, as well as the responsibilities of all subjects. "As far as the project itself is concerned, we had a situation this summer that the construction part of the works was completed, and when it comes to the installations, all pumps in the pump stations have been set up. What has not been done is that the pumps are not connected to the system and that no secondary network has been connected to the system itself. We missed a large part of the documentation that we did not get from the contractors, what they did about testing the system and some other parts for which we're not sure the testing was done at all," Djurovic said.
She explains that most of the documentation is missing in order to complete the project and begin taking over the system. He states that there is disagreement in the financial part between the contractor and the Municipality and that the contractor considers that the operation of the Municipality has prevented them from working and that is the reason for extending the deadlines.
Dahlem, as a supervisor and a FIDIC engineer, gave an estimate of how realistically justified the request by the contractor is.
"The Turks believe that the real amount of EUR 3.200.000 is justified and that it was included in the valuation that was submitted for payment to the Municipality of Herceg Novi. We are also contesting it," says Djurovic. She stressed that the local administration considered to be damaged, because the work had been postponed, and that the Municipality suffered and still suffers from the damage of all the years in which the demolished town welcomed tourists and was "at the service" of the locals and, therefore, suffered the damage to the image of the tourist site and tourist offers. Djurovic explains that the negotiation period among all subjects, which FIDIC foresees, has been completed, and that the Municipality has terminated the negotiations and requested that further action be taken on these claims and that the Dispute Settlement Commission should be included. If this does not work, the next step is arbitration.
In the meantime, we are also preparing our claims against the contractor because we feel we are damaged for many things, affecting the fact that we have not yet received a complete project. Because we are dissatisfied, we refused to pay the contractor for the partially suspended the works, specifically, the merger of the pump stations, as this is the only thing left to be done along with the paperwork," explained Đurović. She announced that they will start examining the quality of the works from Friday, which was disputed even in 2015 when she expressed doubts about their quality and fake testing. Djurovic confirms that the sea has never been cleaner than this summer, indicating that the system works, but that it is not an indicator of the quality of the works performed.
Asked by “Dnevne novine” about the situation with the wastewater treatment plant, Đurovic reminded that a year has elapsed since the contract with Turkish contractor Mas Gintaš was terminated. As stated, the contract was terminated because they did not work at a predetermined pace, but also because of insolvency, although they have since then reduced the debt and paid the creditors.
Text by Dnevne novine, on October 10th, 2018, read more at CdM
