Selman continues old habits: Development Bank director orchestrates crime

Salko Selman (SDA) came to the position of director of the Development Bank of FBiH in 2014, and he was accompanied to the doors of this important institution in the country, which has nearly 100 million KM at its disposal, by a multitude of affairs, scandals, and suspicious deals, writes the BiH news agency Patria.

The media in BiH have been intensively writing in recent days about the graduate economist, former manager of a local mine in Bila, and former Prime Minister of the Central Bosnia Canton, who is linked to numerous financial malversations, blackmail, nepotism, tax evasion, abuse of office, rigged tenders...

Even, legal experts are clear, Selman's appointment as the head of the Development Bank of FBiH, as NAP wrote, is contrary to the law, because Selman was appointed to this position while holding at least five political functions, which is in direct violation of Article 18 of the Law on the Development Bank of FBiH.

The media also published a facsimile of a document in which the commission for compensation for damages caused by the May floods in the country awarded Selman 37,000 KM in damages, even though the damage to his property caused by the overflow of the Lašva River in Travnik was barely 2,000 KM.

German investors have been trying to build 3 mini-hydro power plants in the Travnik area for almost 10 years. The acquisition of each new document is accompanied by systemic obstruction by the authorities. Nobody cares that the Central Bosnia Canton and Travnik are losing money from fees, reports zurnal.info.

A true economic schizophrenia in the local way is unfolding just sixty kilometers away. While in Donji Vakuf they have only words of praise for the project of the company Grid BH, which, with investment partners from Germany, the company PCC DEG, has built a mini-hydro power plant in this area, the same job in the municipality of Travnik faces numerous, but only seemingly administrative, obstacles. 

In 2004, the Government of the Central Bosnia Canton announced a tender for the award of 40 concessions for the construction of mini-hydro power plants. Grid BH won 6 positions and then signed a contract for 4 concessions. There were no problems with one mini-hydro power plant. In mid-2009, the one on the Prusačka River was put into operation.

I wish that those who were opponents of such power plants had attended today's ceremony, that they had come and seen that it can be done properly. Only by bringing in capital, investing, and filling the budget, will we utilize our resources in the right way, protect our waters, and ensure conditions for a better life for citizens - stated Huso Sušić, the mayor of Donji Vakuf municipality, on that occasion.

Seven years later, the satisfaction of the officials of Donji Vakuf has not diminished. All legal regulations on environmental protection have been respected, the local water supply system has been renovated, and partial demining of the area has been carried out. Facilities for recreation for excursionists have also been built.

- Grid BH has respected all agreements, regularly pays its obligations monthly, and we have no complaints about this project - Adis Habib, assistant mayor for spatial planning, cadastre, and property-legal affairs of the municipality of Donji Vakuf, told Žurnal.

However, the satisfaction expressed in Donji Vakuf is not shared in Travnik. Residents of the local communities of Višnjevo and Dub, in the area between the villages of Mehurići and Gluha Bukovica, are signing a petition to prevent the company Grid BH from building mini-hydro power plants in that area.

During 2004, 2005, and 2006, Grid BH carried out geodetic measurements and other tests required for obtaining permits in the construction area of 3 mini-hydro power plants. At that time, none of the locals had any objections - states the director of this company, Hamdija Hadžić.

The lawsuit is signed by the deceased as well

The real problems, according to Hadžić, came and are coming from the Travnik lawyer Adil Lozo. On behalf of the "Ecological Association Central Bosnia", of which Lozo was also the president, he initiated legal proceedings. It was important only to delay the entire process; the motives would become clear later. Representatives of Grid BH noticed that among the signatories of the petition were people who had died years before, as well as names of non-existent people. None of this interests Adil Lozo.

Regarding the company Grid and their internal investigations according to which they obtained data that signatures were given in the name of people who are not alive, it is not known to me that this is true, nor are these circumstances of interest to me. These facts could, if true, be known to the Prosecutor's Office of the Central Bosnia Canton, because the documents that were signed are likely public documents whose accuracy is not doubted, until it is proven in the conducted proceedings, and not according to someone's opinion, that their content is incorrect - Lozo stated in a written response to Žurnal.

The processes initiated by Lozo's ecological association, under the guise of dissatisfied locals, lasted more than 4 years. As soon as environmental permits for all three mini-hydro power plants were obtained, new obstructions followed. Grid BH initiated the procedure for obtaining urban planning consent for the first of the 3 power plants. However, the Municipal Council of Travnik then passed a decision declaring the area a nature park precisely at the location where the facility was planned to be built!?

According to the law, such a decision is within the jurisdiction of the canton, but the votes of the SDA councilors decided. Permits for the remaining two mini-hydro power plants, including urban planning consent, were only obtained in 2013 and 2014.

- Only after environmental permits were issued for all three MHEs, administrative lawsuits were filed with the competent courts. All three cases were resolved in favor of Grid BH after a long time, in 2010 and 2012 - says Hamdija Hadžić.

When it was time to proceed with obtaining the building permit, Adil Lozo initiated a lawsuit with the Ministry of Spatial Planning. He managed to get the procedure for obtaining the urban planning permit reopened.

Permits for party loyalists

Meanwhile, while the construction for Grid BH was being challenged, three mini-hydro power plants of other companies were installed in the same area. Neither for any of them did the locals, or Lozo's ecological association, cause any trouble. Two were built by a company co-owned by a close relative of the former Prime Minister of the Central Bosnia Canton and current director of the Development Bank of FBiH, Salko Selman, who himself owns the company for the production and trade of electricity MiniWat, and coincidentally or not, intends to build a mini-hydro power plant on the Bila River. He was the organizer of the meeting between representatives of the company Eskimo S2 and Grid BH.

- They offered to take over our largest mini-hydro power plant from "Grid BH" in exchange for a concession for another area - says director Hamdija Hadžić.

It is conditionally interesting that Eskimo S2 conducted a test run of the mini-power plant built on Bila, even though it did not yet have a building permit, but when it comes to Salko Selman's protégés, few ask about permits.

Moreover, instead of the two planned by the project, they installed three turbines, with the audacious explanation that there was a lot of water in the riverbed, so they installed another one. Regardless, EP BiH pays for electricity from three turbines. All this shows that in the area of the Central Bosnia Canton, the law applies as implemented by the SDA and their partner HDZ BiH, when their interests do not align. Salko Selman is difficult to find, but even then he does not answer uncomfortable questions. Adil Lozo denies being the legal representative of his countryman Salko Selman and the company Eskimo S2.

- I am not in a position to answer your questions. Firstly, I am not the authorized representative of the economic entity you mention in your questions. I am not a representative of some Eskimo 2, and if I were, I would not be able to provide information about my client without his permission, as stipulated by the Law on Advocacy in FBiH - Lozo states in his response to Žurnal.

The third mini-hydro power plant, called Moščani, was built on the Kozica stream. It did not bother Lozo's eco-activists either, just as the garbage that accumulated on the banks of Kozica and Bila (see photo) does not bother them, nor did it prompt any action to remove it.

A bad experience with this power plant is the reason for the later attitude towards those of Grid BH, claims Kadir Osmanović, president of the Višnjevo Local Community Council:

- It largely influenced the attitude of the people in Višnjevo and Dub, it's a disgrace in the sense that they left that part of the river dry in the most critical period, the riverbed was dry. It was promised that they would build two access roads to Dub and to Višnjevo, and nothing was done. In the end, we tried through the court, but we lost that case.

He, like other locals, was not aware that their eco-protector had ensured that the MHE Moščani was built without problems, later drawing them into an unnecessary, pre-lost lawsuit.

Party above the state

It was not only Lozo who was responsible for obstructing Grid BH. Sulejman Bečirević is the brother-in-law of Salko Selman's wife and the long-time director of the Directorate for Roads of the Central Bosnia Canton. He refused to grant Grid BH a road permit, arguing that a mini-hydro power plant could not be built within the 10-meter road protection zone. However, he signed the permit for Moščani, mentioned earlier, even though the distance there is only 2-3 meters (see photo).

After Grid BH appealed, the second-instance body, the Ministry of Economy of the Central Bosnia Canton, issued the permit, but Bečirević (and this is possible in BiH) initiated an administrative dispute against his own competent ministry!? The Cantonal Court in Travnik naturally rejected the complaint, but Bečirević did not stop filing appeals. For years, under Salko Selman's supervision, personal and party interests in the Central Bosnia Canton have been paramount.

-Salko Selman owns 3 of his own companies: MiniWat, Colsa, and Bila comerc. Of course, it is speculated that he also has certain shares in other companies such as Eskimo, Energokul, Elektrovolt, and others to which Selman, as prime minister, granted concessions for the construction of mini-hydro power plants through accelerated procedures, practically through rigged competitions, because he has his people in the Commission for awarding concessions, so before the competition is announced, it is known who will receive certain concessions for certain mini-hydro power plants - explained Besim Ajanović, from Whistleblowers of the Central Bosnia Canton and former secretary of the KO SDA SBK.

Mysterious legal articles

Meanwhile, hiding behind "public interests" and challenging Grid BH's construction of a mini-hydro power plant, Adil Lozo, through the family-connected "Agricultural Cooperative Farma" on the Bila River, opened a fish farm, precisely between the locations where Grid's water intake and powerhouse were to be built. The method of obtaining a water permit for the fish farm is questionable because it is located below the planned water intake of the mini-hydro power plant, which means that the biological minimum, which must not be reduced, is already flowing in the river. The permit does not actually state how much water the fish farm will use, which is the basis for calculating the fee for water use. In the explanation of the permit, the Ministry of Forestry, Agriculture, and Water Management of the Central Bosnia Canton refers to Article 139, paragraph 2, point 8 of the Law on Waters of FBiH, which does not exist in the text of the law at all!? Interestingly, no one asked the residents of the surrounding local communities if they had any objections to the construction of the fish farm and the endangerment of the fish population.

- No one asked us for that, but since he is a local man... I am involved in fishing, so he has certainly endangered it. I don't know how he got the papers, I know the land is his own, I don't know the rest... - says Kadir Osmanović, president of the Višnjevo Local Community Council. Osmanović also adds that they have been manipulated in every way, but he does not want to openly say how and by whom.

Regarding the problem with investors from Germany and the possible resolution of the situation, Žurnal sent an inquiry to the Prime Minister of the Central Bosnia Canton, Tahir Lendo, the same one who signed the concession for the construction of a mini-hydro power plant on the Bila River for Salko Selman's company.

After a few days, Lendo's cabinet stated that the inquiry had been forwarded to the Ministry of Forestry, Agriculture, and Water Management of the Central Bosnia Canton. Instead of an answer to the question of how to solve the problem, this ministry only identifies the problem:

 - Unfortunately, the construction of these MHEs is possible only after obtaining construction permits, where there are problems. We hope for the successful realization of these MHEs, because we have a pronounced interest in collecting concession fees during the concession period, and after that, these MHEs become the property of the Canton. We support the construction and successful completion of these projects - it is stated in the response to Žurnal.

For almost 10 years, equipment worth 5 million for three mini-hydro power plants has been ready. Recently, representatives of Grid BiH, at a meeting attended by the German Ambassador to BiH Christian Hellbach, also informed the Federal Minister of Spatial Planning, Minister Josip Martić, about everything. The German investor, who has thousands of employees, billions in revenue, and operates in 18 countries, only has such problems in one country – BiH. And it is ready to invest tens of millions more KM. Here, they would pay concessions and other fees during its use, and ultimately, after 30 years, the facilities become state property.