{"id":19676,"date":"2018-07-18T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/from-nigerian-scheme-to-clandestine-eps-procurement-worht-milions\/"},"modified":"2019-09-30T23:43:54","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T21:43:54","slug":"from-nigerian-scheme-to-clandestine-eps-procurement-worht-milions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/from-nigerian-scheme-to-clandestine-eps-procurement-worht-milions\/","title":{"rendered":"From Nigerian scheme to clandestine EPS procurement worth millions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing the tradition of his grandfather and father, Velibor Zlatkovi\u0107<\/strong> had been maintaining roads in his native town of Crna Trava in the south of Serbia for thirty years. He says he is familiar with his work in details and emphasizes with pride that he had been looking after state-owned property all the time. Through his career he had never experienced any unpleasant situations.<\/p>

This changed two years ago.<\/p>

Checking a part of a road, some 14 km away from the settlement of Sastav Reka, he noticed that a part of the roadside was missing on the right side; the railing was torn away to the level of asphalt.<\/p>

\u201cThat meant that someone clumsy could have slipped off the road and got killed\u201d, explains Zlatkovi\u0107.<\/p>

\"\"<\/a>

Velibor Zlatkovi\u0107<\/strong>, road maintenance worker from Crna Trava<\/p><\/div>

He called the police and competent persons from the public road company, placed appropriate signals, and, as he says, did everything by law. When he came to his office the following morning, he received an unexpected phone call from Dragan Klisura<\/strong>, owner of the company for construction of small hydro power plants, Hidro-Tan<\/em>.<\/p>

\u201c\u2019What is it that you have against my company?\u2019, he asked me. I said I had nothing against it, I was just doing my job. He said: \u2018Well you won\u2019t be doing it any longer\u2019\u201c, tells Zlatkovi\u0107 his story.<\/p>

He reported the threats to the police. Several months later, he was fired from his job, and he still does not know what happened to his report.<\/p>

Leskovac police department notified the journalist from the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia <\/em>(CINS) that they filed the report on acting upon charges to the Prosecutor\u2019s Office in Leskovac; however, before the publishing of this story, the Prosecutor\u2019s Office did not reply to the questions about this case.<\/p>

Representatives of the road company Trace did not want to provide any comments for CINS.<\/p>

In the place where the road was damaged, Klisura\u2019s Hidro-Tan<\/em> company was building a hydro power plant, one of the total of eleven hydro power plants constructed by the company in the territory of Crna trava.<\/p>

The eleven hydro power plants also include Jabukovik. It is partly owned by Klisura himself, but also Nikola Petrovi\u0107<\/strong>, best man of Serbia\u2019s president Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107<\/strong>. Last year, Hidro-Tan<\/em> used it as a reference to win the job of restoration of small hydro power plants from Serbian Electric Power Industry<\/em> (EPS).<\/p>

CINS discovers that within two tenders for reconstruction of 14 hydro power plants conducted by EPS in February and May 2017 Hidro-Tan<\/em> received somewhat less than \u20ac5 million. At both tenders, Hidro-Tan was the only bidder, while EPS kept hiding this data for a long time. Implementation of the project is delayed for years.<\/p>

The story of Hidro-Tan and the second most important player in the area of small hydro power plants in Serbia \u2013 company Eco Energo Group<\/em> \u2013 does not start with the coming of Serbian Progressive Party<\/em> (SNS) and its leader Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107 in power, although both companies experienced greatest success in this period.<\/p>

The CINS investigation indicates that managers of the former Yugoslav construction giant, Energoprojekt company<\/em>, with criminal charges for abuse of office and money laundering, which was dropped later, developed the two companies while the business of construction of small hydro power plants was only in the beginning, in period of power of the Democratic Party<\/em> and its coalition partners.<\/p>

Thus, in April 2010, the first small hydro power plant owned by the company Eco Energo Group<\/em> in Crna trava was started up by the then minister of energy Petar \u0160kundri\u0107<\/strong> from the Socialist Party of Serbia<\/em>. As it was reported by media, \u0160kundri\u0107 gave the future power plants of the company constructed in Vlasina the name of \u201cVerini \u0111erdani\u201d (Vera\u2019s necklaces) after Vera Risti\u0107<\/em>, one of the owners.<\/p>

While they were still opposition, members of the Progressive Party <\/em>kept promising that they would assist Energoprojekt<\/em> shareholders to resolve issues in the company; however, this did not happen, while the main roles in companies Hidro-Tan <\/em>and Eco Enegro Group <\/em>were assumed by Dragan Klisura and Nikola Petrovi\u0107.<\/p>

Petrovi\u0107 and Klisura did not accept to talk to CINS journalists.<\/p>

Nigerian scheme<\/h2>

In spring 2010, Mija Popovi\u0107<\/strong>, employee with the marketing department of Energoprojekt Holding Company<\/em>, was tasked by the then Managing Board president, Miodrag Ze\u010devi\u0107<\/strong>, to go to the Ministry of Mining and Energy and see whether Energoprojekt<\/em> could participate in the business with small hydro power plants which was only just emerging in Serbia, Several days later, Popovi\u0107 appeared at the door of Ze\u010devi\u0107\u2019s office, slightly angry.<\/p>

Popovi\u0107 explained that he had visited Nikola Rajakovi\u0107<\/strong>, former state secretary with the Ministry, and that he was told the following: \u201cAre they pretending they are crazy, privately developing small hydro power plants and sending you to inquire about the procedure.\u201d<\/p>

Energoprojekt<\/h2>\"Energoprojekt\"<\/a><\/div>

Ze\u010devi\u0107 was perplexed. Neither he nor the then general manager Vladan Pirivatri\u0107<\/strong> had anything to do with the business with small hydro power plants.<\/p>

\u201cAll of a sudden, it was like a fire – who does it by oneself, who is actually competition to Energoprojekt<\/em> itself\u201d, says Ze\u010devi\u0107. He adds that at the Managing Board meeting he requested criminal charges to be filed against him should it turn out that he did not speak the truth.<\/p>

Documents from Energoprojekt indicate that he did not lie, but also that managers and employees connected with this company did participate in the whole story.<\/p>

\u201cThat is something we could call a Nigerian scheme\u201d, Ze\u010devi\u0107 describes the beginnings of Eco Energo Group<\/em> company.<\/p>

Back in 2006, together with the daughter company Energo Management Group<\/em>, Energo Nigeria<\/em>, which was partly owned by one of the Energoprojekt Holding <\/em>members, Energoprojekt Oprema<\/em>, established a company nowadays known as Eco Energo Group<\/em>, which is the owner of seven small hydro power plants in Serbia, and which earns income worth several million from subsidies for renewable energy sources.<\/p>

Some employees and managers of companies directly or indirectly related to Energoprojekt<\/em> – Pavle Toma\u0161evi\u0107<\/strong>, Dejan Jeroti\u0107<\/strong>, Ranko Bo\u017eovi\u0107<\/strong>, Dragan Klisura<\/strong>, and Svetlana Gregovi\u0107<\/strong> – were involved in ownership of the company from the very beginning.<\/p>

In the following years, the ownership changed several times; Toma\u0161evi\u0107, Bo\u017eovi\u0107, and Klisura first became owners and then left the company, abandoning it to ownership of an off-shore company from British Virgin Islands, Eco Energo Group<\/em> Corporation<\/em>, the manager of which was Gregovi\u0107.<\/p>

Documents from the Serbian Business Registers Agency<\/em> indicate that in 2008 and 2009, while Klisura was its manager, the off-shore company Eco Energo Group Corporation <\/em>granted credits to Eco Energo Group<\/em> company at the amount of about \u20ac532,000 and US$265,000. Later on, as it could not be repaid, the money was turned into the capital of the company the money was borrowed to.<\/p>

By 2010, the individuals who became owners of Eco Energo Group<\/em> were first Vera Risti\u0107<\/strong>, mother-in-law of Serbian tennis player Novak \u0110okovi\u0107<\/strong>, with her company Eco Global<\/em>, and then Nenad Kova\u010d<\/strong>, called Ne\u0161a Roaming, through the company Roaming Electronics<\/em>.<\/p>