Kosovo will remain without Trepca: Cause of bad management, she's going bankrupt.

The metallural tripca plant is currently facing major problems of functioning, low production, and inadequate management. All this situation is said to be bringing the company into crisis and near bankruptcy.

Minister of Economic Development in the Government of Kosovo Valdrin Luka tells Radio Free Europe that there are problems in the Trepca metallural plant, and that will continue for a while.

The Trepca is currently going through a difficult time. There's a problem with production, production problems, management problems, union problems. Although we were defeated and looked at the possibilities of production capacities, but this is not happening satisfactorily”, Luka says.

Luka adds how they have given Trepca management opportunities to put together with the union to review jobs, move some of the personnel from the positions that are different and voluntarily put them into the mines, as Luka “says the more workers in the mine result in increased production”.

Close to two years since the adoption of the Trepca Law, all procedures for the start of recovery and the development of the nation have not yet been completed.

The company, Serbian Minister Luka underlined, is going into numerous legal processes and believes that in October the adoption of Trepca's status in the Kosovo Assembly and that it will be registered as a stock society.

We have increased the dynamics to complete this legal aspect, but we have faced some problems between union and board, where it results in a union strike. But we're sitting down and we've reached a settlement that in three months we can solve those problems. Commissions for solving problems were formed a month ago and are at the start of the job, and we have time to reach agreement” within two months, Lu Luka says.

The completion of all legal processes with the Trepca plant, adds Minister Luka, will pave the way for much easier development of “Treps” through private capital investments.

Trepca Miners in the month of July had gone on strike for several days because of the disagreements they had had had with the draft state of the Trepca plant approved by the Kosovo government.

Shyqri Sadiku, chairman of the Trepca Union, told Radio Free Europe that institutions have neglected the processes for Trepca's recovery.

He says that in the form of Trepca's management, it's going to bankruptcy.

Sadiku adds that most of these problems are announced to competent institutions, but that no one has the will to deal with their solution.

There has been a drastic decline since 2014. Compared to 2016 to 2017, we have nearly 27 percent less production, and that is disturbing and potential. Unfortunately, there is a decline in 2017. In 2018 alone, 184 thousand tons are planned for the Stanton mine, but no more than 60 percent” is realized, Sadiku says.

According to official data, from 1945 to the period before 1990, the mine produced some 600 thousand tons of ore a year. Today, though, more than 150 thousand tons of ore come out of it.

The metallural Trepca plant is located in the municipality of Mitrovica. Its sectors are located in the northern and southern part of the city.

In addition to assets in Kosovo, 31 of this nation's property are found in the republics of the former Yugoslavia, including factories, offices and other objects.

Trepca was among the largest companies in the former Yugoslavia. Since the war, however, he has faced numerous problems that he never recovered. / REL/