All the President's Men

Jovan Zebic, a Finance Minister, is the president of the governing board of Serbian post offices; Nikola Stanic, the government vice- president, is the president of the governing board of Serbian Railways; Slobodan Prohaska, the vice-president, who resigned, was elected vice-president of the governing board of the single oil company. These are only the personal indicators of the consistent realization of the concept of Serbia as a single company. The present Serbian government did not invent that concept. It is only being consistent in its implementation.

The main law concerning the transformation of the social property has for long waited in the drawers of the ones who have put forward the proposal, while in the meantime many laws were passed concerning the formation of public companies in which the state owns over 51% of capital. The government is creating a public company in railways, PTT, roads, electricity (where the express integration of 14 companies is being carried out with 40 percent of Yugoslav energy sources and trade of around 1.4 billion dinars a year). After the oil complex, the politically and financially important RTV was placed under the direct control, which has only around 1.6 million subscribers, which annually amounts to 300 million dinars, where the Parliamentary vice-president Vukasin Jokanovic is in charge of its control. The nationalization of lottery has also been announced, where big money is involved, and the proposal concerning the centralization of the military industry is under way. In the companies of this kind the government appoints the directors and most of the governing board members.

After Milosevic came on power, he did not undertake the mass dismissal of directors to the extent it was carried out in 1972, after the breakdown of liberals, but he kept a firm grip on them.

The pyramid of bare political power served as a model for the pyramid of property decision-making. The public companies can not go bankrupt, but that is not all. Last week MP Mihajlo Markovic (SPO - Serbian Revival Party) caused anxiety by asking the Parliament not to pass the law which would give the railways the right to issue the shares which the banks have to buy out, until the Parliament adopts a document concerning the condition of the railways and establishes whether the existing leadership should have the money. The government can with the help of public companies change the conditions of earning for the entire economy (with the control of prices and a simple manipulation of big capital). Some economists claim that the public companies serve, in effect, as the government parafiscal instruments. Three ministers can change the economic outlook of the republic by implementing the internal agreement. It is logical to assume that the government men in the monopoly corporations will represent the interests of the government by order, and the interests of corporations in government wholeheartedly.

The Parliament in all probability has no control over this aspect of power.