The Government of RS facing lawsuit due to a concession worth BAM 158 million

The Government of Republika Srpska is facing lawsuit due to a concession for the construction of the solar power plant “Dubovik” in Krupa na Uni worth BAM 158 million that it yesterday awarded to the consortium of companies “SunnyFox” from Novi Grad and “GTI” from Sarajevo, discovers CAPITAL.

A lawsuit against the Government of Srpska, Ministry of Energy and Mining and the RS Commission for concessions has been announced by the consortium of companies “Solar energetic” from Krupa na Uni, “Tempo kompani” from Belgrade, “Interpromet” from Novi Grad and “Siming trade” from Foča that participated in the public call for award of this concession.

The company “Solar energetik” was eliminated from the concession awarding race because it did not receive points as the submitter of the initiative in line with the law. This company submitted the initiative for award of the concession for construction of 80 MW solar power plant “Dubovik”, but did not participate in the public call independently, but as a member of the aforementioned consortium.

The right to a bonus

Because of this, the RS Commission for concessions did not recognize their right to a bonus of ten percent, so after the scoring the concession was awarded to the consortium “SunnyFox” and “GTI” that had 88.82 points.

The consortium led by “Solar energetik” had 86.75 points without the bonus, and if it had been awarded the bonus, it would have had more points than the rival consortium.

The owner of the company “Solar energetik”, Braco Stupar, said for CAPITAL that he still has not received a notice from the Commission for concessions or the competent ministry about the results of the public call, stressing that he will make a decision on further legal steps together with his partners once he receives the decision.

“I am eager to see the reason for disqualification given in the decision’s rationale, especially if it was done because we, as a submitter of the initiative, haven’t been given the bonus. I cannot make the decision on further steps alone, since I am in this together with my partners, but we will certainly see if there are elements for a lawsuit against those responsible”, said Stupar.

The entire procedure before the RS Commission for concessions abounded in controversies as a result of which the member of the RS Commission for concessions, Goran Mišić, filed an objection with the RS Government and the competent ministry, and refused to sign the Minutes on opening of the offers for award of the concession.

The secretary of the Commission for concessions, Davor Šešić, also did not sign the minutes on the opening of bids, but this did not prevent other members of the Commission to evaluate two received bids in the continuation of the session and to submit a proposal to the Government to award the concession to the consortium consisting of “SunnyFox” and “GTI”.

The Rules of procedure and the Law on Concessions violated

In his objection sent to the Government and the competent ministry, which is in possession of CAPITAL, Mišić assessed that the Rules of procedure of the Commission for concessions and the RS Law on Concession have been severely violated.

He stated that a confusion happened at the end of opening of the bids and during the drawing of the minutes on November 9, because a representative of “SunnyFox”, Ljubiša Kostić, stayed in the Commission for concessions after bid opening and dictated his objections to the recording secretary.

“His objections contained substantive elements from the offer of another bidder, namely a series of objections to the contents of the Feasibility Study, as well as to the contents of the Consortium contract that he couldn’t have known considering that during the bid opening procedure the Commission did not engage in the substantive evaluation of the bids, but  had only evaluated the procedural assumptions”, said Mišić.

He said that he had, together with the Commission’s secretary, requested the objections relating to the bid’s elements not to be included in the minutes on bid opening, underling the fact that the representative of “Solar energetik” did not have any objections to the bid opening procedure. After the bid opening procedure was completed, he was told that the Commission will continue drawing the minutes for  two hours, and that he should come to the meeting room then.

Although, as he said, the representatives of both consortiums inspected the documents after 2 p.m. in the presence of the secretary and recording secretary, the representative of the company “Solar energetik”, Mladen Elez, made an objection that he did not have the same treatment as the representative of “SunnyFox”, Ljubiša Kostić, who stayed in the Commission’s premises after the bids were opened.

“The continuation of the session was scheduled for next day at 10 a.m. in presence of all Commission’s members, secretary and the recording secretary Gordana Turjačanin, and the president of the Commission Maja Šuput presented the bidders’ objections. When I heard objection made by Mladen Elez that he did not have the same treatment, I stated that we had made a mistake because we should have enabled simultaneous inspection of the contents of the bids so that they couldn’t make such objections”, read Mišić’s objection.

A member of the Commission left the session

He pointed out that the Commission took into consideration only the items related to the validity of the documentation for participation in the public call when considering the objections and concluded that both bids meet the formal conditions for the continuation of the procedure, i.e. for the bid scoring procedure.

After the reconciliation of the minutes, the secretary and recording secretary left the room to finish the minutes, and I went out for a break. I was invited back to the session five minutes after, and the Secretary of the Commission, who according to the Rules of Procedure must attend meetings, did not participate in that part of the session, and the recording secretary was not present either, ” specified Mišić.

According to him, the president of the Commission immediately offered two scoring tables in which she noted that one bid was without included bonus of 10% for the submitter of the initiative.

“I was surprised and asked why we need to comment on the scoring right away, since both bidders made serious objections. I thought that the Commission should studiously study all the objections, because it has a legal deadline of 30 days to deliver to the concessionaires a report on the implemented procedure. I left the meeting with the remark that I cannot participate in making such a complex decision in such a short period of time”, said Mišić.

On the other hand, the president of the Commission, Maja Šuput, had confirmed in a report sent to the Government of the RS that the secretary of the Commission did not sign the minutes on the opening of bids, as well as that one member of the Commission left the session before the scoring procedure was started, whereafter the Commission unanimously decided to submit to the Government a proposal that the most favorable bidder is the consortium consisting of “SunnyFox” and “GTI”.

“The submitter of the initiative for award of the concession is “Solar energetik”, and a review of the offer revealed that it was submitted by a consortium. Since submitter of the initiative is not an independent bidder, but a member of a consortium, the Commission decided that the right to a ten percent bonus cannot be recognized,” wrote Šuput, thus practically eliminating that consortium from the concession awarding race.

According to the public call for the award of concession, the solar power plant “Dubovik” will be built on an area of 102 hectares in the area of the municipality of Krupa na Uni. The estimated value of the investment is BAM 100.126.000, the installed capacity is 80 MW, and the estimated annual production is 100 GWh.

Who are owners of the companies

The consortium consisting of “SunnyFox” and “GTI” offered a one-time concession fee of BAM 792 thousand while the planned value of the project is BAM 158 million.

According to APIF, the owners of the company “SunnyFox”, which has no employees and did not generate any income, are Dejan Đukić, Sonja Janković Simić and Ljubomir Jovanić, who is also the director of the company. But the fact that the company has no employees does not play a significant role since a large number of companies that are founded to participate in public calls for concession awards have no employees and they only hire workers after they get the concession and start investing and performing economic activities.

The second member of the consortium is much more interesting – the company GTI. That company was founded in February last year in Sarajevo, its owner is the Austrian company Green Invest Gmbh, and the owner of that company is Safet Rastoder, and there is no information available whether he is related to the Slovenian “banana king” Izet Rastoder, who recently sold a shopping center under construction Stožice in Ljubljana to Mladen Milanović Kaja.

The consortium “SunnyFox” and “GTI” submitted bank statements of the company “GTI” from Zirat Bank with 2.9 million Euro and around BAM 85 thousand, as well as a notarized certificate from the Company Invest Gmbh in the amount of 81 million Euro as a guarantee for the BAM 158 million worth investment.

This guarantee was disputed before the Commission for concessions by the authorized representative of the competing consortium Mladen Elez, stating that the guarantee was not given by a financial institution, but by a natural person named Aleksandar Verner who, as Elez pointed out, was presented as the owner of a certain Fund.

When it comes to the companies of the second consortium; “Solar energetik” from Novi Grad also did not generate any income same as “SunnyFox”, but the fact that it is the submitter of the initiative clearly shows that it was established for that work, and all other members of the consortium have been generating multi-million income for many years already.

The company “Interpromet” from Novi Grad is owned by Dragan Pilipović, a long-time businessman and former minority shareholder of Nova bank. This company, which is engaged in the wholesale trade of medicines, has been generating multi-million incomes for years, more than BAM 100 million KM in recent years, and for the last two years alone, it has shown a profit of over BAM ten million.

“Siming trade” from Foča, whose owner and director is Mladen Elez, has been generating income of between three and four million BAM for years and shows an annual profit of several hundred thousand marks.

This consortium offered a one-time concession fee of BAM 611.000 and an investment in the value of BAM 122 million, and as a guarantee for the investment it submitted a bank statement of the fourth member of the consortium -Company “Tempo kompani” from Belgrade showing 25 million Euro, as well as Nova banka’s letter of intent issued to that company in the amount of BAM 73 million.

“SunnyFox” and “GTI” consortium, which was awarded the concession yesterday, have presented before the Commission for concessions their objections to the Economic Feasibility Study of the competing consortium. Their main objection was that “Solar energetik” submitted the initiative for award of the concession alone, and later did not participate in the public call alone, but as a member of the consortium, and that therefore is not entitled to a bonus of ten percent.

The Commission for Concessions of RS accepted this objection and thus directly eliminated that consortium, and awarded the concession to the consortium of the companies “SunnyFox” and “GTI”.