The Sarajevo Tobacco Factory (FDS) was founded in 1880 and is one of the first four industrial companies in our country. It has survived many challenges, including three wars and various political and social arrangements. It did not survive peace, the political, and economic system in which we live today.
Despite decades of existence, FDS is shutting down. The supervisory board of Badeco Adria, which is the majority owner of the factory, has made a proposal to liquidate it. That decision should be confirmed at the planned session by the Assembly of the company in early March, and the motives, as they say, are exclusively economic.
”In the last three years, the accumulated loss of FDS amounts to 7.5 million BAM. This proposed decision is a consequence of the long-term systemic destruction of the domestic tobacco industry by the authorities. Given the negative effects of excise policy at the level of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), further survival of the FDS is not possible.”
The president of the Independent Trade Union of Tobacco Industry Employees of BiH and a former employee of the factory, Mehmed Avdagic, also claims that the authorities influenced the scene we are witnessing. However, he says, poor capital management was also an introduction to the accelerated disappearance.
”What about the capital, in what way was that capital alienated from the Tobacco Factory? We do not have the real state of the Tobacco Factory today. Two factors are important here: poor capital management and poor state management through the introduction of excise and through its representatives of the governing bodies in the Tobacco Factory. The state staffed the policy at the Tobacco Factory. When the Federation sold its capital, then the factory started to disappear,” Avdagic points out.
About 3.000 workers used to work in this factory, and now a total of 150 of them are unemployed. The union says this is the worst possible option.
Employees were offered severance pay in a higher amount than provided by the Labor Law of the Federation. However, this cannot compensate for the loss of jobs, nor the wider consequences for our economy. The union says that the authorities had to find funds to save the company’s business. At a time when we have the best chances, we are left without a strategically important factory, which is an example of the situation in which the country finds itself.
E.Dz.
Source: Federalna
