The company from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Energoinvest is one of the 6 companies from our country that were mentioned as part of the Pandora papers campaign. Authorities in the country are announcing an investigation but without much optimism. And the question that arises is how come there is not a single politician from BiH among the mentioned names.
Pandora papers: the biggest data leak ever
Czech Prime Minister and billionaire Andrej Babis, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan have dedicated part of their political careers to fighting tax havens and tax evasion in the countries where they fought for power.
Our country is not outside Pandora’s box either. Surprisingly, this time, BiH politicians are not on the list, but there are companies from our country. Six of them. Which exactly, the public does not know yet. According to a Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) survey, one of the companies mentioned in the Pandora papers is Energoinvest.
Based on a large number of leaked documents, BIRN revealedthat starting in 2013, Energoinvest paid a total of more than 3.6million euros to a small consulting firm registered in the United Arab Emirates in March that year. The company, called AL Energy Transmission, is run by Albanian businessman Vasil Kallupi.
The Ministry of Security of BiH, within its competencies, is already dealing with this issue. But, they are not optimistic and state that individuals or groups involved in the mechanisms of organized crime are above the institutions that fight against them.
“I think it’s a kind of alarm that crime knows no borders. And the challenge of the security system is to reach a higher level of cooperation with its functionality. I will not speculate about the allegations, the question is how accurate these claims are and what additional research will show, ” mentioned BiH Security Minister, Selmo Cikotic.
The fact is that BiH is not immune to corruption or money laundering. But, the reason why more than 12 million documents did not include more domestic actors is probably that there is no need for that. Insiders claim that our country is also a suitable ground for injecting illegally acquired money into legal channels. According to a survey by the Capital portal, more than two hundred Slovenian companies registered in Banja Luka in that way avoid obligations in their home country.
“There are certainly many more such companies from other countries. Here, it is easy to put dirty money into legal flows through various activities – from catering, construction, to doing business with other legal entities – where its origin is very poorly or almost never checked, ” stated Sinisa Vukelic, editor of the Capital portal.
Another reason why more names from BiH are not among these documents is, according to the profession, that they use other offshore destinations. But it will be talked about that when the time comes. Let’s go back to the current 6 companies. The discovery of the remaining 5 is expected in the following days, Federalna writes.
E.Dz.
