Foreign investors who have plunged BiH into darkness

By Rasim Belko

The arrest of the president of the Independent Board of GIKIL Lukavac, Pramod Mittal, has once again opened the question of the intentions and capabilities of foreign investors coming to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Pramod is the brother of Lakshmi Mittal, one of the five richest people in the world. He was arrested in BiH for economic crime.

According to the initial investigation results, Pramod Mittal has been siphoning money from GIKIL to his company GSHL for years. The investigation began when workers started reporting irregularities more frequently.

It is indicative that the BiH Prosecutor's Office, upon two requests from the Tuzla Canton Prosecutor's Office, refused to declare itself competent in this case.

The GIKIL case is not the only fraud in post-war privatizations and pompously announced foreign investments in BiH.

Political parties, for the sake of daily political points, especially during election campaigns, have announced foreign investors as saviors of the BiH economy. Some of them have proven to be a cancer on the BiH economy.

The never-built Vranduk Hydropower Plant is one such example. The Strabag/Končar consortium collapsed after Strabag withdrew. The last cornerstone at the location where HE Vranduk was supposed to be built was laid in September 2016 by Bakir Izetbegović, Denis Zvizdić, Fadil Novalić, Nermin Džindić, and Fahrudin Radončić. Through international arbitration, Strabag had to return the money to Elektroprivreda BiH, while the damage to BiH companies will not be compensated.

The investment of the Czech Energy Group in the Gacko Mine and Power Plant (RiTE Gacko) was announced as the largest foreign investment in the BiH entity of Republika Srpska. The entire story ended with RiTE Gacko finding itself as the defendant in court. Both ČEZ and minority shareholders sued them.

The Russian investment in the Brod Oil Refinery is also one in a series of failed projects. The Russian owners of the refinery never paid more than KM 130 million into the RS budget, which the Refinery owed to the Budget based on unpaid obligations on the day the sales contract was signed. Official institutions and auditors have repeatedly warned that the Refinery is accumulating debt to the RS due to non-payment of contributions to workers. Losses are multiplying month by month, and the Russian owners have tried to buy time with several announcements of withdrawal.

Two Slovenian companies are also on the list of "major" investments that ended in failure and lawsuits.

The retail chain "Tuš" withdrew from Bosnia and Herzegovina, leaving behind millions in debts to suppliers and around 600 unemployed workers. They owed money to suppliers, the Indirect Taxation Authority, the state, and their fraud of establishing two companies was discovered.

Another company from Slovenia caused financial chaos and disappeared from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The company SCT embarked on the project of building Sarajevo Bypass LOT 1, but everything soon fell apart. SCT engaged BiH companies as subcontractors, to whom the money was later returned through arbitration.

The president of SNSD and member of the BiH Presidency, Milorad Dodik, recently presented the Vietnamese Mai Vu Minh as a wealthy investor who wants to invest in the economy of Republika Srpska, after which the media revealed that Mai Vu Minh is a fraudster who does not have the capital he talks about, and that his photos with world leaders were fake.