Trepca can go bankrupt, that's why

The Kosovo government has not yet completed procedures for selecting the board of supervisory complex Trepca, which would enable implementation of the Trepca Law, which was introduced a year ago.

The Trepca Watch Board, under this law, had to be founded within six months of approval to the Kosovo Assembly, but, as representatives of this nation, this issue has been neglected by institutions.

Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, in October of this year, had asked the competent ministries to engage in quick and concrete actions about implementing the Trepca Law.

Haki Shatri, an economic adviser to Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, tells Radio Free Europe that he expects procedures about selecting the Trepca Watch Board to be closed within a month.

“Kych at the start of the Haradinaj Government mandate, one of the key problems that has called for a quick solution, has also been the functioning of Trepca under the passed law. The government has announced the competition for forming the Trepca board. The deadline for competition has been closed and the commission has now been formed for the candidate's assessment to then proceed further”.

The new board could not begin procedures to register Trepca as public companies at the Ministry of Trade and Industry. All procedures, such as the assessment of candidates and until the vote in the Assembly, can take time from now for a month of”, Shatri says.

The breakthroughs that have been done to implement the Trepca Law, by representatives of this nation, are considered to have resulted in huge losses, as well as have failed to start with the development policies of this enterprise.

Fortunately Sadiku, chairman of the Trepca Union in a campaign for Radio Free Europe speaks of a poor situation in the Trepca plant. He says production has fallen to very low levels.

The current situation in Trepca is not good at all and for many reasons: not forming an supervisory board, mismanaging, misusing and not disciplining at work. In the first nine months of this year alone, we have less production for 30 percent compared to the previous year. If it continues with delays in selecting the supervisory board, Trepca will go towards bankruptcy”, Sadiku says.

He adds that for the fall of production in the Trepca plant, all competent institutions are announced, but that no concrete steps have been taken to get out of the situation.

According to official data from 1945 to the period before 1990, the mine produced some 600 thousand tons of ore annually. But today, 150 thousand tons of ash are extracted.

Disfunction of the Trepca Law, even according to the director of this plant Ahmet Tmava, in addition to the decline of production, has brought serious difficulties of operating as a company.

And the tripca is in the survival phase with big problems, but we're hoping things move. Workers ' health problems, age postponed, and lack of investment are causing problems. Trepca's status is currently unclear”, Tmava says.

The Trepca plant was estimated to be one of the largest companies not only in Kosovo, but also in the former Yugoslavia. In recent years, however, he went through the survival phase, and more than 20 thousand former workers have already numbered about 1,400 workers.