Why is Bisera Turković visiting Ginex and Pretis more and more often

The ex-Chief of Diplomacy of Bosnia and Herzegovina has not answered Fokus's questions whether she is now employed as an intermediary in import and export of arms. Documentation sent by the Office of the Prime minister of FBiH Fadil Novalić to arms industry companies contains a plan for introducing a Qatari company into partnership with Bosnian firms, who would pay a high price for that project.

Written by: S. DEGIRMENDŽIĆ/Fokus.ba

Bisera Turković, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs of BiH and a long-time ambassador of BiH in several countries of the world, has gone into the business of intermediation of sale and export of arms and ammunition from the most prominent arms industry companies in FBiH. Her “first job” in the arms industry is to ensure that the company Barzan Holdings from Qatar becomes a partner of Unis Ginex from Goražde, Pretis from Vogošća and Igman from Konjic. Our sources warn that official institutions are foregone in Turković's work, but that the Federal Prime minister Fadil Novalić is informed. All of the three mentioned companies are majority owned by the government of FBiH.

ALL BISERA'S ROADS LEAD TO QATAR

The plan to introduce Barzan into our arms industry on favorable conditions has been plotted earlier.

The documentation on that, which is in possession of Fokus, has been introduced to the administrations of these companies by Fadil Novalić's office on April 7th 2022, sent by his consultant Aida Soko.

The proposal for the project of cooperation with the Qatari company came frome the office of Fadil Novalić

According to this plan, Bosnian arms industry firms should implement three projects with Barzan, and an additional project between the government of FBiH and the Qatari company, worth 270 million KM in total!

The project called “FBiH – PROJECT PROFILES” stipulates that the Qatari firm is provided a manufacturing line by each of our companies, and that the companies would be leased machines and equipment from Qatar in return. However, they would have to pay for this, while the Qatari firm would be entitled to a part of profits from our arms industry companies!

The title page of the project of introducing the Qatari company into the arms industry of FBiH

The realization of this project in Ginex was supposed to begin last year, but the administration and the supervisory board of Ginex declined cooperation the way Novalić intended, after which the government of FBiH removed the director of Ginex Munevera Fočo from office. It's well known that this removal from office was prevented by mass protest of Ginex workers as well as citizens of Goražde last year in April and May, while in the following months Novalić was forced to lay low with his intentions regarding the Qatari firm.

However, the turn of events after last year's elections has created uncerainty on SDA's participation in government and their preservation of power and control, especially in the arms industry where Novalić has reigned supreme for the past eight years, leading to renewed “offensive” action on his behalf. He accelerated the realization of his joint plan with Turković.

It's worth noting that Bisera Turković has been the ambassador of BiH in Qatar from 2018 to 2019. Since 2019 until January 2023, Turković was the Minister of foreign affairs of BiH, and has visited Qatar in each of these years. That Turković's ties to this country are special, shows the fact that she employed her son in BiH's embassy in Qatar.

The most interesting visit of Bisera Turković to Qatar was the one in October 2021, when she was in the country in the company of Novalić and directors of unnamed Bosnian arms industry companies. At the time, she posted on her Facebook profile, mentioning that Bosnian arms industry companies in Doha signed agreements “on the technical cooperation with the leading Qatari state company in this domain”.

Turković stated on October 25th 2021 that “Qatar is willing to invest in the development of new manufacturing capacities, based on contracts worth millions signed earlier, which were the beginning of a successful long-term cooperation between two countries in this domain”.

To this day, it's unknown what are these contracts worth millions

Until today, there was no knowledge about what kind of contracts she was talking about. Our sources say they were especially worried that Turković and Novalić used state authorities and capacities in establishing cooperation with the Qatari company and officials, which Turković uses, as they say, for private purposes and personal gain.

Since the joint visit of Turković and Novalić to Qatar, a year has passed, and after that, they haven't publicly mentioned Qatar nor the announced investments and millions they were bragging about while enjoying the visit to Qatar paid with our money.

PROJECT „DETONATOR“ AND THE PROFIT DISTRIBUTION SCHEME

According to the project from Novalić's office, the joint project of Ginex and the Qatari company was named “Detonator” after Ginex's most prominent product – the Detonator cap. The project's worth was estimated at around 17 million KM, while the period of implementation was set at two years.

The project is supposed to ensure a special manufacturing line for the Qatari company, with the equipment Ginex would lease, including a warehouse where the Qatari company would hold stock.

The most scandalous part is that Ginex would pay leasing costs for the equipment to the Qatari firm, while transferring them a part of profits, as stated in the document “according to the arranged profit distribution scheme”!

Our sources, familiar with Ginex's work, say that this model of cooperation is detrimental to the Goražde company, because Ginex has around 40 million KM on their accounts, and can buy their own machines needed to expand capacities, without needlessly spending on leasing the equipment from anyone.

They argue that the suggestion to give part of the profits to the Qatari firm is pointless, especially at the time when Ginex's detonator is one of the most sought after products in the world, particularly since Russia, once the biggest manufacturer of detonators, has been prohibited from exporting it because of their aggression on Ukraine.

According to the documentation in Fokus's possession, the supervisor board of Ginex, comprised of Sedad Dedić and Alem Omerhodžić, then members of the Board in the name of state capital, and Hamid Pršeš, the board member in the name of Ginex shareholders, gave consent on the meeting held on April 19th 2022 to the administration of Ginex to continue negotiations for the realization of the project with the Qatari firm, but to exclude the conditions on the joint profits, the equipment leasing and the partial transfer of profits.
On the other hand, the administration of Ginex didn't agree on this issue. Munevera Fočo, the director of Ginex, and Admin Peštek, the executive director for economics, marketing and commercial business, were all for cooperation with Barzan, but not under the terms proposed by Novalić's project, while Hasan Tafro, the executive director for manufacture, was in agreement with the model of cooperation of Ginex and the Qatari company proposed by Novalić's office.

Split opinions of the administration of Ginex on the cooperation with the Qatari company: Fočo and Peštek against giving up part of profits, Tafro in favor

On that session, the director of Ginex Munevera Fočo said that it's in the “interest of FBiH government to establish cooperation of this Qatari company with arms industry companies”, even though, as she pointed out herself, Ginex could realize this project on it's own.
Additionally, Fočo said at the time that the cooperation of the Goražde-based and the Qatari company was “initiated from the top of the state and that the negotiations are held between the Ministry of Defence of Qatar and the Ministry of foreign affairs of BiH”. We are still waiting for the answer from the Ministry of foreign affairs of BiH on whether they held any negotiations with Qatar's Ministry of Defence.

Today, when the positions of prime minister Novalić and Nermin Džindić, minister of energy, mining and industry, without whose knowledge in the companies where the FBiH government is majority owner nothing can be done, are under scrutiny because of the change of government after eight years, the workers of arms industry companies who can not talk publicly, warn that the project which has been on hold for almost a year, is being accelerated through Bisera Turković.

Last year's protests did interfere with Novalić's plans, but the lack of supervisory board's support was also at fault, because the saga of appointing the second member of the board on behalf of state capital, without whom the fullfilment of Novalić's wishes is impossible, has been going on for months. Along with Sedad Dedić, Meho Deljo was appointed in the name of state capital. But, as we discovered, he was not suitable for the execution of Novalić's plans, so the FBiH government named Mirsad Dučić instead of him, even though well informed sources claim that Deljo was unlawfully removed and that his mandate lasts until 2025.

Our sources claim that Novalić, using Dučić, wants to execute his influence on the decisions in Ginex, and that with his help, he wants to install his allegedly close associate Hasan Tafro as the director of Ginex instead of Munevera Fočo.

Introducing Bisera Turković as intermediary with the arms industry companies, the issue of losses by our companies in this domain is opened once again, as it is well known that the products of Bosnian firms for manufacture of arms and ammunitions are very sought after in the world, and can be sold directly with no need for intermediaries who profit greatly in this way, and the money could instead remain in our companies.

Just as the model of cooperation in Ginex, there is a similar model of cooperation with the Qatari company envisioned for Pretis from Vogošća and Igman from Konjic.

For now, it's unclear to what degree Novalić and Turković will succeed in their plans, and how much their efforts to satisfy foreign partners interested in entering our arms industry are already hurting the aforementioned firms.

Export and production for Qatar yes, but not with intermediaries and not under the conditions set for us by Novalić, our sources conclude.

There is yet another case for which Fokus has proof that bears witness that the arms industry companies, especially Ginex, are constantly the target for suspicious and, for them, unfavorable partnerships.

The case in question is the negotiation of the administration of Ginex with a certain Jelena Uljarević from Serbia, who intermediated in 2021 an introduction of the Italian company Italsistemi from Milan into a kind of partnership with Ginex and the realization of joint projects.

Uljarević has, as we have discovered, been coming to meetings with Prime minister Novalić, who decided not to answer our questions regarding this matter.

According to documents in our possession, Munevera Fočo and Fadil Novalić were “deep” into negotiations with Uljarević, and not even the members of the supervisory board knew the details.

There was even a workgroup formed for the realization of this project. It's interesting that one of the e-mails about Ginex that Jelena Uljarević forwarded to Italsistemi in Milan was addressed to a certain Đorđe Avramović.

Correspondence with Jelena Uljarević, a project proposal for building a manufacturing plant in the circle of Ginex came from Serbia

A person with that name was mentioned in Serbian media as the unofficial special envoy of Aleksandar Vučić in the negotiations with the company Rio Tinto during the affair of the same name in Serbia.

The supervisory board of Ginex officially discussed this project with Italsistemi in April 2022. After the opinion that it's the “infiltration of Serbian politics into the company because of the detonator” and that they were “spies” was brought out on the session of the supervisory board, the whole thing “died down” in Ginex.

However, our sources claim that the negotiations could continue, however not with Ginex, but with another company in FBiH.
We sent a written inquiry to Jelena Uljarević to clarify her role and interest in the arms industry companies in BiH, but we haven't received an answer.

Neither Bisera Turković nor Munevera Fočo or the Office for public relations of the FBiH government have answered our questions regarding the issues that we have published in this report.