Former SNSD member awarded lucrative contracts at Elektroprivreda BiH

By Armin Aljović

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Delegates of the House of Peoples of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina will today consider the Proposal of the Decision on granting consent for the credit debt of the Public Enterprise “Elektroprivreda BiH d.d“ with the Export-Import Bank of China for the construction project of Block 7 of the Tuzla Thermal Power Plant. This concerns consent for a credit debt with the Chinese bank in the amount of 1.4 billion KM.

The House of Representatives of the FBiH Parliament previously approved, by a majority of votes at its session on March 7, that the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina will be a guarantor for “JP Elektroprivreda BiH d.d“ for this credit debt. However, without the support of the House of Peoples, the decision cannot come into effect. 

Meanwhile, the European Union has expressed dissatisfaction with this Federal-Chinese arrangement. During the visit of European Commissioner Johannes Hahn to Sarajevo, Hahn was warned that Bosnia and Herzegovina will have to pay huge taxes if it builds Block 7 in the way it is currently planned, due to future harmful CO2 emissions from Block 7 into the air. Europe encourages the production of electricity from renewable sources, while reducing or completely rejecting the production of electricity from coal, as planned for the future Block 7.

If Bosnia and Herzegovina builds Block 7 outside of European Union standards, Europe will not buy electricity from Bosnia and Herzegovina. This would mean that Elektroprivreda would not be able to service the Chinese loan, and the Chinese would take over Elektroprivreda BiH as a form of mortgage. 

But has the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina already lost control of the most profitable company in this part of Bosnia and Herzegovina without even entering into a risky deal with a Chinese bank? For example, companies from Banja Luka have already taken over the finances (SAP) and databases (Oracle) of the Public Enterprise “Elektroprivreda BiH d.d Sarajevo“, thus having insight into information about customers of “Elektroprivreda BiH d.d Sarajevo“, information about finances (FI), investments (IM/PS), controlling (CO), procurement and material management (MM), information about maintenance (PM), and information about sales of goods and services (SD) from these companies.

How this looks in practice: On April 16, 2018, Elektroprivreda concluded the Agreement “Maintenance of Oracle licenses“ with the Banja Luka company NITES d.o.o. worth 1,129,495.20 KM! The contract in question is valid from April 16, 2018, to June 30, 2018. The same matrix was used in this business year. On March 13, 2019, Elektroprivreda BiH signed an identical contract, with a slightly lower amount, with the company LANACO d.o.o Banja Luka, with a validity/execution period until June 30, 2019. It remains unclear who collected the money after the expiration of NITES's contract on June 30, 2018, until the new LANACO contract on March 13, 2019? In a consortium with LANACO, a smaller Sarajevo IT company also received the last contract at Elektroprivreda BiH. 

The owner of LANACO d.o.o Banja Luka is Nebojša Ninić. The media previously reported that Ninić is extremely close to Milorad Dodik and was a member of the City Committee of SNSD in Banja Luka.

Ninić’s LANACO maintains the “ERP SAP system“ at “JP Elektroprivreda BiH d.d Sarajevo“, thus having insight into the entire financial system of “JP Elektroprivreda BiH d.d Sarajevo.“ For the renewal of SAP licenses, according to the Procurement Plan for 2019, “JP Elektroprivreda BiH d.d Sarajevo“ planned to spend 4,848,000 KM.