Denounced by Živković

We have the impression that Živković is obstructing formation of the new government because he fears to have the Ministry of Interior run by the Democratic Party of Serbia and a lot of things revealed. EU is dissatisfied with report of Interior Ministry on sugar exports.

      With regard to information sent to the Republic of Serbia Government by the Public Attorney's Office - which states that the ex-governor of the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) broke some laws and disposed of property of the Clearing and Payment Service (ZOP) without authority, but also defines the main problem as a dilemma of whether the mentioned property belongs to the Republic of Serbia or the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, and proposes an out-of-court settlement of the issue between the Republic of Serbia and the bank - Mlađan Dinkić, G17 PLUS Vice-president says for "Glas javnosti" that the Public Attorney's Office is facing the same problem he had at the time. "To bring up the issue now is much ado about nothing."
      All was done to enable a smooth transfer of the payment system onto banks at the beginning of 2003, however banks did not have the sufficient number of offices in smaller towns in Serbia, while ZOP had as many as 160. When the first building of ZOP was put up for rent a year before in February, approval was asked from the Federal Government, but later, at the time when the Constitutional Charter of the State Union was being drawn, the property status of ZOP was undefined. If we had asked approval from the Federal Government, we would have given Montenegro the right to claim part of the property, which now belongs to Serbia, in some future property distribution between republics. We then decided, with full knowledge of the Ministry of Finance, to let ZOP office space free-of-charge for a period of three years to all banks that showed an interest, under the condition that they keep all former ZOP employees.
      This office space is used by 13 banks, not "Nacionalna štedionica" only, and banks are now using 15 percent of total ZOP office space, while the rest was assigned to Finance Ministry departments (unfortunately, after one whole year the Tax Administration has not entered their premises, which are still idly vacant), and the NBS. Moreover, all property that banks are using has been transferred from the NBS balance sheet onto that of the Finance Ministry. This goes to say that claims of property being privatized or reassigned are simply not true, nor has the state suffered any damage. On the contrary, it had immeasurable gain since there is almost no place in Serbia today that does not have a bank, and if we know that the opening of a single job costs five to ten thousand Euros, multiplied by 2000 people who kept their jobs, we get a cost effect of between 10 to 20 million Euros.

Glas javnosti: You claim that everything had been known about "Nacionalna štedionica" all along, while PM Živković says that even he was surprised to find out that it was not a state bank.

Dinkić: It is important to know that the whole attack, which is sponsored by Bogoljub Karić, began after a meeting in Democratic Party (DS) headquarters, where Miroljub Labus said, in talks on the future government program related to fighting corruption, that the first moves of the new government will be to clarify the sugar affair, to return 35 million Euros of money illegally reimbursed to Karić to the budget, to establish property relations in Mobtel and regulate that field. Obviously someone reported all of this immediately to Karić, we suspect PM Živković to have been the one.

Why?
- Our basic impression is that Živković is obstructing government formation for fear of having the Ministry of Interior run by the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and a lot of irregularities out in the open. His proposal of the possibility to form the government in five days time, under conditions when the whole of Serbia is witnessing idle negotiations going on for an entire month, is as serious as announcements that the government needs three days to remove all obstacles that stand in the way of a prolonged EU sugar embargo on preferential exports in three days.

The government also adopted a report on sugar, but contrary to the case of "Nacionalna štedionica", nothing was revealed to the public although the time limit for a EU decision is almost over.
- That report was not made public by PM Živković, just like the recent letter of European Commissioner Chris Patten, which contains a warning and justification of the EU decision to prolong the ban on sugar exports from Serbia and Montenegro under preferential conditions for probably another period of six months. There is dissatisfaction with the functioning of the Interior Ministry in this case, which brings up the question of why Živković and top people of the Interior Ministry that he controls are protecting businessmen connected to the sugar affair, while Serbia is suffering losses of several tens of millions of Euros. At the same time, the "Nacionalna štedionica" affair was invented and constantly emphasized, although the state made good use of the bank that perfectly serviced payments of old foreign currency savings for over 800.000 people.

Why is the dismissal of Kori Udovički a condition for reaching an agreement on the new government? That request has been allocated to you.
- In legal terms, Kori Udovički will not be dismissed, her appointment will be annulled and a new governor chosen. The illegal appointment of Kori Udovički was the main reason for overthrowing the government and dismissing the parliament, so it is only natural that an annulment of the appointment should be one of the first tasks of the new parliament. All three parties of the democratic block - the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO)-New Serbia (NS), and G17 PLUS are insisting upon this.

Reproaches that this will cause destabilization of the central bank have already been voiced.
- On the contrary, the NBS will finally stabilize after that takes place, since it has been under pressure and destabilized ever since the Bodrum affair was opened.

When will that happen?
- Forming the Assembly, appointing the governor and the new government will finish by the end of March. That is why we are appealing to the Democratic Party (DS) to accept the agreement on a majority government that they asked for at first, and to make the first step of voting for a democratic candidate for the parliament speaker. Time is running out, the parliament should be constituted, with the help of DS or without it. All the more since the choice of parliament speaker does not affect the formation of government at all, and all parties have their place in Assembly boards anyway.

What is the role of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) in all of this?
- My answer to that is that our door still remains open for the DS.

Bojana Jager               

Charges pressed

      - You will see that all that is now falsely insisted upon in media sponsored by Karić over the subject of "Nacionalna štedionica" will stop after the formation of the government, when we will have to face real problems. As for the media harangue on his television where photos of Labus and me are misused to illustrate diagrams of companies from exotic islands, our lawyers are preparing to press charges and demand compensation for damage. We will give that money to humanitarian purposes. I have no direct or indirect ownership in any firm or bank, and never was a member of any management board, and for that reason I will not allow people who made their wealth on people's misery stain my reputation.

Unknown facts about "Nacionalna štedionica"

You are reproached for having assigned the payment of old foreign currency savings to "Nacionalna štedionica" without a tender, thus giving it monopoly.
- On the contrary, the bank was formed with the idea to ensure undisturbed payment of over 8 billion DEM of old foreign currency savings from the largest state banks. As early as October 2001, after the first analysis were made, an informal decision was brought with full consensus from governments of the republic and former federal state and National Bank of Yugoslavia, for liquidating these four banks that had enormous debts, as were never seen before in banking systems of any other transition country. All relevant state bodies knew of this operation two months before it happened, and by forming a new bank we were preparing to start payments of old domestic and foreign currency savings and deposits of companies that were trapped in the four banks immediately upon their liquidation (January 3, 2002), so the tasks were assigned to "Nacionalna" and "Poštanska štedionica". It was only natural that no one could publish a tender (which was not even proscribed by law at the time) and announce to the public that four largest banks will be liquidated, that would have caused financial chaos. Consensus was reached on all these issues, in December 2001 I had a few meetings and agreements on the topic with late PM Đinđić, who even opened the "Nacionalna štedionica" officially.