Economy: Premier's Showdown

Dr Stanko Radmilovic made an attempt to as of January 1 start the process of "property transformation", which would at least partially "divide" the state property among the real shareholders, so he provided for this new public company to be immediately registered as a share-holding company, which would give birth to four limited companies.

Before going into detail, it would be important to note that the very idea of extended holding with four companies and six subsidiaries was ill received since to all the interested parties the air was "filled with uncertainty".

The somewhat confused Serbian energy minister Nikola Sainovic said at one of the latest meetings of the oil industry managing board that, instead of the share-holding company with four public limited companies, a public company should be formed which would, again, form four other public companies. Only Zoran Todorovic, Radmilovic's deputy had the courage to remark that the old organization forms can no longer be sustained if the character of ownership is changing.

Dr Stanko Radmilovic has thought for a long time that he was safe since he probably received an order to "arrange" the situation in the oil industry from Slobodan Milosevic in person. Conscientious as he is, he practically did the whole transformation project himself and waited with inflated confidence its realization when it seemed that the Belgrade centre did not favour the idea of the Vojvodina Parliament that precisely Radmilovic should be the official candidate for the successor of Ante Markovic. How come than dr Radoman Bozovic in the first days of his mandate found the time to gather the oil-men and simply show dr Radmilovic that he has no idea of letting any private capital flow into the most cumulative industry even if a man who required it had until yesterday the underlying consent for his plans from both Milosevic and Zelenovic? It can not be claimed, however, that dr Stanko Radmilovic started up some "property adventure" although he informed "Politika" that he has radically changed his views concerning social ownership. He has, with the help of experts calculated that the capital of Serbian oil industry towards the end of October amounted to 82 billion dinars (which, then ranged between 1,2 and 1,5 billion dollars) so he undertook the "privatization" with the issuing of shares amounting to a billion dollars. This is not really a "privatization" since a precise plan has been devised which clearly states how many shares accrue to whom, and it is neither a "sale" of social capital although 500 million dinars worth of shares will be bought by business partners, 200 million dinars by the owners of private petrol stations, 200 million dinars by the workers at the oil and chemical industry and only a 100 million dinars by the ordinary people. Added to this, the shares are divided into the ones with priority which guarantee around 5 percent of real income, into the ordinary ones which along with the dividend carry the famous right for "proportionate" management. when he himself notices that "only 1 percent of the shares" were written in.

According to Act 12 of the republic law on the conditions and the process of changing the social property into other forms of property (starting from July 31 of this year), "organizing the firms as companies by issuing and selling the shares is being undertaken under the conditions that the workers within the company write in the nominal share value amounting to at least 10 percent of the entire social capital of that company and that the director and other employees who, in accordance with the statute, carry out the managing of the firm write in the shares with the nominal value which amounts to their entire netto earnings from the accounts of the last two years and mostly in the dinar counter-value of 30, 000 German marks. Leaving aside the basic issue of-who has written this ludicrous act, we could assume that it concerns precisely the legal act over which Bozovic and Radmilovic are fighting. So, Radmilovic craftily answered the allegations that he did not include enough owners in the "transformation" of the firm into a "company", by saying that with the very act on creating the public company out of the oil and chemical industry the social property has become state property and the same law allows for social property of the public companies to "privatize" up to 49 percent of its assets.

It would be difficult to say how the entire "Belgrade oil circle" headed by Dragan Tomic, the new "Jugopetrol" director views this. They probably do not like the "hard head start" of the young premier, all the more since they have already tried to run away from "the past" and privatize their firm. Whoever is acquainted with them, knows that they will not be standing still.

The most difficult thing of all would be to find out what the "boss" Slobodan Milosevic, the president of the republic has approved, although there are many oil men who pride themselves on having his private phone number. He has, most likely, chosen dr Stanko Radmilovic as a scape goat which would presumably serve as a signal which would endear him to Milosevic. It is most likely that the resignation of the crestfallen dr Radmilovic became public only after the balance of power has shifted in favour of Bozovic. That, of course, does not mean that the game surrounding the big capital is over.