Not even five days after Air Serbia “with great pleasure” announced that it had independently provided funds and paid 57.6 dollars to the company of its co-owner, EA partners, as the first due loan of 120 million, and boasted that it had achieved “thanks to responsible business before the coronavirus pandemic, as well as extensive austerity measures and business rationalization at all levels in the context of the greatest crisis in the history of civil aviation, caused by the pandemic “- it is not clear from what means or with whose help it was done.
It is not known how the “Copernican trade” came about in the company that informed the Etihad only three months earlier that there was not enough money to settle the debt, which is why 82% of that claim was requested to be written off.
Etihad refused without thinking, although the state leadership announced that talks would be held with the Arab partner.
There was obviously nothing from that, so the money had to be found under the 2015 contract. It is not known who decided the bag, but few believe that it was really paid from the cash desk of the national airline.
Vladimir Vuckovic, a member of the Fiscal Council and an associate of the MSAT magazine, told Danas that everything is a big unknown and that no one knows what happened there and what the Government’s relationship is with that company.
– According to the results of Air Serbia’s business, it is clear that they did not have enough money to pay that installment, especially due to the crisis in that industry, which is now working hard. The question was rightly asked whether the company would be able to settle it, after which we received official information that it had paid. The public rightly wonders what it is about, and it is up to the Government or the Ministry to give an answer to that. Because, the story does not end now, that company needs to survive after the paid loan, to pay its other obligations to the employees and to the state and other suppliers, then next year there will be another, slightly bigger loan installment. That is why we have reason to wonder how the previous transaction was executed and what the perspective is in this and next year – says Vuckovic and adds that there is a strong suspicion that this story did not sustain itself.
He points out that there are several ways in which the necessary money can be provided, either from a new loan to pay off the old one, or to use some stocks, for which we do not know if there are any, there are other models, but precisely because of uncertainty, due to the importance of the company and the potential fiscal cost, we should have a clearer picture of what happened there, says Vuckovic.
It is clear to economist Milan Kovacevic that they could not pay that money from their own funds and that they did it earlier, when they asked for a debt write-off.
– Suddenly it turned out that they could pay and they paid. It is obvious, however, that this is a different method of payment and it is obvious that they exist. You also saw with Telekom, first they said that they were not in debt, that they made acquisitions with their own money, and now you see that the central bank practically credited that company because they are over-indebted. There is another problem here. Obviously this is some kind of state subsidy and I don’t know why anyone needs to hide it. Most airlines are in great difficulty, all traffic, and it should have been assumed that there are problems, that the loan must be repaid and treated more normally, that it is communicated to the other partner, that reasonable negotiations are requested and not just send a request for debt write-off – says Kovacevic.
The announcement of the company that they suddenly prospered and paid for everything from their own funds is also irritating, so we should be proud because they work well, he emphasizes and states that it is unclear where that money was found.
– In our country, people usually do that with money. There were many cases when a public company, Srbijagas, for example, paid for others, there were transfers from the Airport to Air Serbia, very often some companies were exempt from taxes. So, there are many ways that are completely non-transparent, and they are because they can be criticized otherwise. The state could simply put money in their account, because our budgets have large reserves, and that is part of the non-transparent money – our interlocutor explains.
We did not receive an answer from Air Serbia and the Ministry of Finance from the sources from which Air Serbia paid the credit installment to the Etihad: Is it budget funds or a loan – if so, is it from the Development Fund or some other state institution? Or it is a matter of commercial borrowing where we are interested in which bank the money was placed through and under which conditions, Danas reports.
