The latest decision of the Government and the Council for Privatization relating the tender for the evaluation of sites of Buljarica represent another indication of why Montenegro is still perceived as a destination that is legally precarious, and why the current portfolio of investors in the property market largely consists of domestic and foreign criminals, businessmen hidden behind off-shore companies and domestic transitional winner.
Thus announced public tender has all the elements of the crime of bringing future investors into believing that the Government has the entire property which is the subject of the tender and represents a classic example of how uncontrolled and dilettante is the Government’s vision for the development of the Montenegrin coast. Tender in which the assets of citizens are taken away and offered for sale to third parties is the result of the perception of Prime Minister Djukanovic that the Government is above the law and by the Constitution guaranteed the rights of citizens of Montenegro.
Council for Privatization yesterday on the tender offered not only the state property, but private property of the citizens of Montenegro, directly interfering with the constitutionally guaranteed right to the inviolability of private property. The Government of Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic so far for several times tried to legislate the obvious intention that instead of the proprietors about their assets it negotiates with foreign investors, but so far without success, thanks to the resistance of the public and property owners.
After a failed attempt to take away property of citizens through the draft on the Law on Expropriation, and then installing the disputed provisions of the Law on Spatial Planning and Construction, the Government is now trying with tender to put property owners at the site Buljarica before a fait accompli, similar to what was done in the case of Blue horizons.
In addition, even the land registered in the Cadastre as the state property is not without burden. On a number of parcels of real estate in the list of immovable property are recorded various of legal disputes, mortgage, facilities built without construction permits, while some parcels the state rented to third parties under the concession fee.
Such as an example is the parcel from Cadastre unit Buljarica II, area of about 839 000 m2, issued to the Bar-based company “MURIZ”, which deals with stone exploitation for a period of 21 years and 6 months, starting from January 2015. Thus the Government provides land for sale that recently rented for a long-term lease to third parties.
Not even with one word the Council for Privatization of Montenegro does not warn of future participants in the tender that the offered property is not the exclusive property of the state of Montenegro, that there are third parties involved as owners but are not voluntarily part of the tender procedure. Investors are not warned that at the parcels are registered burdens, and that in case of purchase or lease of land, the new owner has to deal with injunctions, decisions, mortgages and other burdens that are found in the lists of immovable property offered in the tender. The Government even hides the information that on the offered parcels are contractual obligations, and that they are also obligation of the future owner.
In the serious business world, these acts are considered fraud, and it is not surprising that the Government and the Council for Privatization created an investment environment in which predominantly can survive only “hustlers”.
We believe that such a tender deserves immediate attention of the competent prosecution office, both in terms of endangering the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the citizens of Montenegro, and also due to mislead of potential investors.
Dejan Milovac
Director of the Research Center
MANS
