Aluminium Union on Arab investors: Our only concern is that the company operates

SARAJEVO, (Patria) – A meeting between government officials and potential Arab investors interested in buying a stake in the struggling Aluminij from Mostar was announced for today at the FBiH Government.

According to Dnevni avaz, published on Thursday, the company in question is WAQT Trade LLC from Dubai, whose representatives are interested in the Government's stake in Aluminij (44 percent) as well as in the 12 percent of shares held by small shareholders in the Mostar-based company, which would allow WAQT Trade LLC to take over the management package in Aluminij.

The Patria News Agency has confirmed that the meeting is expected to start around 2:30 PM in the Government building in Sarajevo.

Aluminij Director Dražen Pandža announced on Wednesday that the Mostar factory will be shut down at the first minute on Saturday, due to huge debts that it can no longer finance. 

In the past few years, Aluminij has been operating at a loss, and the company's total debt amounts to almost 400 million marks, of which more than half is debt for consumed electricity.

Around 150 workers of Mostar's Aluminij set off from Mostar towards Sarajevo on Thursday, where they will seek assistance from the FBiH Government for this company on the verge of collapse, and also demand accountability from those who brought Aluminij to bankruptcy.

Last week, a meeting was also held at the Government with representatives of the Swiss company Glencore, which expressed readiness to take over the Mostar-based company, but the meeting ended without an agreement. The main prerequisite for Glencore's entry into Mostar was securing a subsidized electricity price for Aluminij, which the FBiH Government could not accept.

Around 900 Aluminij workers are eagerly awaiting the outcome for the company.

When asked how the Union views today's negotiations between the Government and investors from Dubai, the president of the Independent Union of Aluminij Workers, Romeo Biokšić, told the Patria News Agency that the Union is not involved in these negotiations in any way, they are not aware of the potential investors' conditions, and therefore cannot comment on these negotiations.

“Our only interest is to preserve the factory and the jobs within it, and it is up to the owner to decide how to achieve that,” said Biokšić.

“It is important for us that the company continues to operate and that workers' rights are not diminished,” added Biokšić, commenting on what he expects from the new owners of the company if the Government and other shareholders decide to sell the management package in Aluminij.

The president of the Independent Union of Aluminij Workers, Romeo Biokšić, told Patria that the workers in Sarajevo will ask the Government for help for Aluminij, but also for those responsible for the company's downfall to be prosecuted. Biokšić said that the factory has been in debt for a long time, but that the top management of Aluminij has been taking high salaries all along, hiring their own staff into the company, without offering any results in return.

Biokšić said that the price of electricity is not the only problem for Aluminij, but that the company's collapse was primarily caused by poor management.

“All our directors have had abnormally high incomes so far, ten or more thousand marks, and this in a factory that is drowning in debt... even when they were dismissed from positions in Aluminij, new jobs were invented for them within the company,” said Biokšić.

Naša stranka blamed HDZ BiH for the collapse of Aluminij, criticizing that this political party has been using Aluminij as its own credit card for decades.