The post-war poor privatization of many Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) companies has led to complete collapse, with the latest example coming from Bosanski Samac, a municipality that officially lost one of its symbols two days ago – the port crane.
Namely, the residents of Bosanski Samac watched in disbelief the demolition of the port crane located on the Sava River, within the port of Samak. This followed on the basis of the execution of a court judgment, specifically the procedure of enforcing the collection of debt.
Let’s start from the beginning. The Luka Samac Goods and Transport Center was founded in 1979, on the right bank of the Sava River, at a position exactly 305 kilometers from Belgrade.
The capacity of this port has not been fully utilized, and poor management led to privatization in 2006, when Balkan Steel became the majority owner.
Bad business moves and obvious omissions by the authorities officially led to the fact that one of the two port cranes went bankrupt two days ago, and on that occasion, the mayor of Bosanski Samac, Djordje Milicevic, spoke out.
”According to the information we received from the members of the port administration, the Indirect Taxation Authority of BiH in RTC Luka Samac initiated the procedure of forced debt collection on the basis of indirect taxes based on the court decision,” Milicevic said.
”We are witnessing a catastrophic way of privatization of many companies in the municipality of Samac, and we have always emphasized the fact that a special strategic company for Republika Srpska (RS), such as the port of Samac, should not be subject to privatization in the way it was done,” he concluded.
Finally, the Government of the RS promised in 2016 that it would help revitalize the port through certain facilities since the renewal of river traffic is one of the important strategic plans for the development of the smaller BiH entity. How much of that was done was shown just two days ago, by tearing down one of the symbols of Bosanski Samac.
E.Dz.
Source: Klix.ba