The Ministry of Transport and Maritime Affairs is trying to resolve the property issues related to the land of Tivat Airport by administrative methods and without compensation to the owners.
The department led by the Minister Osman Nurkovic is carrying out this quickly, trying to eliminate one of the remarks of the government's intention to give the airports to concession - unresolved ownership issues about the real estate.
Also, according to the unofficial information, the Ministry received such an order from Prime Minister Dusko Markovic - to resolve the controversial property issues before the Government even considers the concession act.
The data of the cadaster show that in the previous two months, all burden registered in the property list of Tivat Airport were erased, resulted by numerous court proceedings initiated by private owners against the state, demanding legal compensation for assets that were taken away from them in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
"We've done a lot of work. Unfortunately, this was supposed to be done by ACG management, as well as many other things because they had about 25 million euros in the account, "said the Minister of Transport Osman Nurkovic (BS) on February 3rd on RTCG.
He and his associates, even after more than 15 days, did not answer the questions about the removal of the burden from the land with 544,601 square meters in KO Mrcevac in Tivat. That's all the land and facilities of Tivat airport. According to the records of the Real Estate Directorate, this was done by the "final decision of the Basic Court in Kotor, whose spokesperson, Spiro Pavicevic, explained:" We are informing you that the court ruled that the lawsuit was withdrawn and that the decision was final on 22.11.2013.”
However, from MSP to this day, they did not explain why the burden from the cadastral register was erased five years after the court made the decision. The Municipality of Tivat said that "erasing the record of court litigations in the jurisdiction of the cadaster". The Law on State Survey and Real Estate Cadaster stipulate that the recording of the dispute shall be deleted ex officio by the expiration of a period of 10 years from the date of the registration, so the interlocutor from the Municipality does not exclude the possibility that this was done ex officio.
For one year and a half there are discussions in public related to the concession, but also among the ruling coalition partners - DPS, BS and the Social Democrats whose staff is managing ACG. Giving the airports in Tivat and Podgorica for long-term lease was announced in May 2017 by the Prime Minister Dusko Markovic (DPS), who defined the current situation at the airports "shameless" and said that through the concession, they can be valorized" in the fastest and most efficient way and lead to a standard adequate to the intention of Montenegro to become a regional touristic leader.
DPS supported by BS, whose line minister and staff claim that ACG does not manage well the airports, stated that this company is an example of nepotism and employment through the political party SD and that Montenegro "does not have the knowledge or money" to adequately lead and develops the airports.
SD, however, rejects the claims, stating that ACG is the most successful state-owned company operating with the profit, although it practically carries along a continuing loser – the national aircraft Montenegro Airlines. They state that ACG can develop the airports from profits and favourable loans offered by the EBRD.
The opposition shares such views, but also a part of the expert economic public in Montenegro and the region that warn the Montenegrin Government "not make sudden decisions", but to be very cautious, because the concession arrangements in the area have not given good results, and that behind private companies that lease the airports there are actually companies of powerful Western countries.
They do not have the interest to develop the company and worry about its contribution to tourism, said Alen Sucuric, a civil aviation analyst from Zagreb, and the owner of the company that deals with this kind of business. He illustrates this with statistical data:
"ACGs are extremely successful. In the context of the size of Montenegro and the environment, ACG is the most successful airport operator in the region and have a great future because they can develop themselves. They are extremely important for Montenegro, which is a remarkable airline destination and for whose tourist economy the airline availability is conditio sina qua non," says the interlocutor.
The interlocutor states that "the concessionaire is a huge danger because he wants profit". "He is not concerned about the interest of a domicile state or city, a strategy for the development of air transport or the overall economy. He does not care whether Montenegro will be connected, whether the number of tourists will be reduced, will it cause a chain reaction of negative effects on the entire economy. He is only interested in huge profits. He will not work with a positive zero. That is precisely why all concessionaire firstly increase fees for 100% or more, start charging a series of services to users who were free of charge until then, the incentive strategy is only in the role of higher income, and not the importance of covering flights outside the season or individual for the country of important destinations and tourist markets," Scuric warns and recommends the government in Podgorica to ask "themselves why the Western countries do not give their airports to concessions, only the Eastern ones. "
So far, the government has not given up on its intention to conclude a concession act, but due to the disagreement with SD, a modified and to some extent agreed concession act and contract, have not yet been found at the Government session.
Minister Osman Nurkovic has been repeating since mid-January that this will happen "as early as this Thursday" (the days of the government sessions). Critics of this arrangement stated that it does not meet the basic requirements under the Law on Concession, which stipulates that the contract must be bilaterally, and not trilateral as planned by MSP, introducing space for "sponsors" into the contract. It was also stated that the valuation of the property has not been carried out, but also of the business itself that the state wants to give in the concession, and that property issues have not been solved, primarily in Tivat.
Despite the deletion of the burden from part of the land of Tivat Airport, several court proceedings initiated by private owners are still ongoing.
One citizen from Krtoli, who has been in conflict with the state for years over his family's property, seized by the state without compensation, says that now they are offered twice as much as a couple of years ago - 37 cents, but that the experts during the court proceedings for such plot, next to the runway, estimated it on 109 euros.
The same amount, the interlocutor says, a few years ago the state paid to the locals whose land had been expropriated to extend the nearby Kotor crossroad.
The Ministry did not want to comment on the difference between the expert's assessment and the state's offer. It was not answered in which way and from what funds the state intends to reimburse the owners of the land it wants to give in the concession.
According to unofficial information, Nurkovic assessed the informal talks with coalition partners that this will cost the state up to 9 million euros. In the cadaster, the government still has in the registration the burden of restitution on the largest, cadastral plot of 291,848 square meters.
Tivat municipality, which is ruled by DPS-SD-HGI coalition, previously in 2017 immediately after Prime Minister Markovic announced concessions, remained without one million square meters - its 486 thousand at the airport and another 44,700 square meters on which the municipality was co-owner with individuals. All of this was registered to the state, and the local administration of Tivat, in the meantime, did nothing to try to protect its property worth tens of millions of euros.
In the meantime, the problem was further complicated because the local administration of Tivat, according to the cadastral records, remained in the past two months without further assets - over 118,000 square meters of land, which "leans" on the fence of the current airport complex and which, according to the State study of the location of Tivat Airport, was intended for further expansion of the airport's capacity. Municipal six plots with the total area of 118,200 square meters from LN 152 KO Mrcevac were registered to the state as the owner, and the Municipality remained entitled to dispose of that property.
The heads of the Real Estate Directorate, government and local DPS officials claimed that this was legalindeed because according to the Law on State Property, the airports could be only state-owned. Although the cadaster leaders then explained that the Municipality had allegedly never been registered as the owner, this was denied by a document issued 19 years ago by the same directorate. In response to the question by delegate Petar Samardzic (SNP) on April 20th, 2000, the then head of the Department for Cadaster of the Real Estate Directorate, Vladimir Grgurovic, said that the Municipality owned over a million square meters in this part of the country, which includes the airport with its surrounded area.
Concessions are harmful if it is a case of strategically important airports, which airports of the capital cities, but also of large tourist resorts certainly are.
Concessions make sense in smaller airports and those that cannot be profitable, so large systems manage to make such unprofitable ports positive, by the synergy in the system of several airports, as well as by rationalizing the operations resulting from shared services and more cost-effective business based on large orders and numbers.
In Montenegro, this is not the case and it must be done very carefully, "assesses Alen Scurica, who is currently the greatest expert in the region for the analysis of profits in the civil aviation industry.
He states that ACG is a very successful company, which by many parameters is the leading operator among airport operators in the former Yugoslavia. In Tivat and Podgorica, as many as 43 carriers landed last year, and ACG had 100 flights a week to the countries in Europe and the Middle East. It is the same number of airlines and a slightly smaller number of weekly lines than at a much larger and tourist busy airport in Dubrovnik. And the other airports in the surrounding area have very low figures, he said. Thus, Tirana had 28 carriers and 79 lines, Skopje 19 carriers and 47 lines, Pristina -14 companies and 46 airlines.
Montenegrin airports have 12 companies that fly for them all year round while Dubrovnik has only 5, and they have an almost ideal - almost equal share in the total traffic between the so-called legacy, leisure and low-cost companies.
Montenegrin airports, according to the analysis by Scuric, also have some of the highest growth rates in the region and predominate in the number of newly opened lines. Thus, for the last two years, as many as 30 have been opened, while at the same time much bigger Serbia has managed to open only seven new lines.
Montenegro with ACG traffic of 2.2 million passengers and a visit of about 2 million tourists has the best ratio of 1:1 when looking at passengers and tourists, better even than the regional tourist superpower such as Croatia where it is 1:2.
According to the number of passengers at the airports compared to the number of inhabitants, Montenegro with a coefficient of 3.7 is by far the most successful in the region of the former Yugoslavia.
The text was downloaded from the Professional Journalist Association website /dpncg.me/
Text by Sinisa Lukovic, on February 23rd 2019, read more at Vijesti
