About 55 million euros were spent in the last four years on the construction of a hydroelectric power plant on the Lim River, in the east of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the construction of the facility has not even started yet, he writes. Radio Free Europe.
In 2012, Russian businessman Rashid Sardarov, owner of the company Comsar Energy RS, received the concession for the project. Two years later, together with the then president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, he laid the foundation stone for the power plant.
The Government of RS took over the project
In 2022, the Government of Republika Srpska, without further explanation, paid Sardarova 35 million euros and took over the concession for the project. The new cornerstone was laid in July 2023.
After that, the entity government paid an advance of 20 million euros to the Turkish company NGA Build, which was supposed to be the contractor. However, the contract was later terminated.
Project problem
The reason for the termination of the contract was the Turkish company’s request to change the project. As they explained, the hydroelectric power plant was originally designed to withstand so-called 500-year water, that is, weaker extreme floods, while new analyzes determined that the facility must be adapted to 1,000-year water and significantly stronger floods.
Director of Elektroprivreda RS Luka Petrović previously stated that such a change would require a larger dam, additional protection and new water spillways, which would significantly increase project costs.
The RS Government, the Ministry of Energy and the RS Elektroprivreda did not respond to Radio Free Europe’s questions about why the problem was not discovered earlier, who is responsible for the money spent and whether the project will be continued.
Criticism of economists and Transparency
Economist Zoran Pavlović assessed that this was a serious institutional failure.
“It is unbelievable that after three years problems in the design are discovered. All of this had to be clear at the moment when the concession was purchased,” said Pavlović.
Transparency International BiH warns that the public has never received answers about who made the key decisions and whether there is a possibility of returning the invested money.
“In the end, we came to the point that there are no such projects, and we paid hundreds of millions of marks to a company that did nothing,” said Srđan Traljić from Transparency.
More than 150 million euros of public money
According to official data, more than 150 million euros of public money was paid for various concessions, companies and failed projects connected with Comsar Energy RS.
For years, Sardarov has been a strategic partner of the Government of the Republic of Srpska in energy projects, including plans for the construction of hydropower plants and the third unit of the Ugljevik Thermal Power Plant.
At the end of April of this year, the Government of the RS through the company “Gas RES” took over the company Comsar Energy RS, and Sardar was then paid about 120 million euros.
Who is Rashid Sardarov?
Rashid Sardarov is a Russian billionaire originally from Dagestan, the owner of the oil company “South-Urals Industrial Company”, whose value exceeds two billion dollars. His name was also mentioned in the Panama Papers.
He received the citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2011 as a “significant investor”, on the recommendation of the Government of the Republic of Srpska.
