Profiteers

A businessman in Podgorica took a foreign currency loan (132,000 DEM) from a local bank in November 1993 and after just 40 days repaid it with a much lower amount (12,400 DEM). His name was on the list of people who got loans at the time of huge inflation that the police made banks draw up recently.

Bankers were astounded because they have no idea why the police wants the lists. Mainly because the interest rates and deadlines were set by the state and because they feel there are no grounds for prosecution. A VREME source said it's a totally different issue who got the loans, i.e. businessmen close to the authorities. The source said the lists will be handed over to police and prosecutors.

Businessman Lj.R. from Podgorica will soon face a court over a debt to Jugobanka of 10,000 DEM although, the source said, he repaid it in dinars. Someone remembered later that the loans have to be repaid in the currency they were given. Allegedly hundreds of charges have been filed but only the unlucky Lj.R. was within the reach of the authorities.

Checks

Ever since checks as a form of payment were introduced in the Bosnian Serb Republic (RS) problems have been growing when cashing them. For example, basic foodstuffs such as oil, sugar, salt, flour are hard to find in Banja Luka. Besides the fact that the prices of those things rose dramatically since the state of war was imposed and the Krajina refugee exodus began, they're only available at the city market for cash in dinars or foreign currency.

So why are residents of the RS getting their salaries and pensions in the form of checks. Even the Banja Luka security service demands cash only to register cars.

A Banja Luka professor got his salary as nine five dinar checks which he thought would pay his phone bill. To his surprise post office regulations say only three checks can be taken in payment at the window. He still owes money for the phone bill and his salary is still in checks.

Equipment Failure

Reporting jobs are highly valued even when the Serbs face disaster and the latest example is the exodus of the Krajina Serbs. Socialist politicians working as humanitarians decisively determined that Martic and the Pale leaders are to blame for the fall of the Krajina. Reporters got down to their jobs. Unfortunate refugees had to condemned the Ustashi and the betrayal before being given water. And that was not just at the border crossings. It also happened at their final destinations in Serbia. The socialists decided that a kind word is better than anything, an answer to the welcome had to come. How? Only the refugees who denounce Martic and Karadzic will be seen and heard.

That was the recommendation of the Serbian state TV (RTS) editorial board sent out to local TV and radio stations.

We found out about those instructions after the director of radio Valjevo refused to burden the profession with politics. But the plan didn't fail only because of disobedience. Karadzic struck back. While radio and TV news shows were swamped with reactions by local SPS boards, Karadzic's letter to Milosevic dropped into the Good Evening Serbia show on the RTS second radio channel which was hosted by radio Cacak. How, no one knows. But since those people are reliable it must have been the equipment since equipment can fail. Just as it did when the front page of the most popular daily included a story on a boy, fleeing from Knin who got to Kotor with completely gray hair. The boy turned out to be a girl with one whisp of gray hair which her mother explained was due to an illness last May.

Sick Leave

Over the past few months even the factories that had some kind of production have been growing emptier in Leskovac. The reason is an epidemic of sick leave caused by the harvest and smuggling. Assessments are that just half of the factory employees live off their salaries. That is most wide-spread in Leteks where 460 of the 2,000 employees are off sick every day. Factory managers were forced to employ another 30 weavers to meet contractual obligations.

Several thousand workers are employed by plants that haven't paid any salaries for months and strikes and dismissals of directors have been commonplace. So there's always a director's post vacant in Leskovac that many don't want. The number of potential directors is dropping because many are discouraged by the example of the IGM Pobeda director who had a stroke while facing creditors and unhappy employees.

One of the many companies who didn't get better after a change of director is the Srbijanka textile plant. It has gone bankrupt and its workers who were sent on compulsory leave left a banner on the gates saying "We Want bread".

Electricity

Serbia's power company readily accepted to threaten the press in an effort to pay back at least some of the criticism over last winter's policy of darkness. The blow to the press came indirectly when the power company said it would start cutting off power to companies that owe vast amounts including Matroz the only Yugoslav paper production plant in Sremska Mitrovica.

Matroz owes 16 million dinars of the 144 million total debt to the power company, a statement said adding that Feronikl owes 3.5 million, Trepca 3.5, and the Belgrade lighting company 3.3 million. That huge disparity in the debt shows whose using how much of their facilities and no one is bothered by the question of how a paper factory can use more electricity than a lead processing plant when both are close to bankruptcy and under state protection.

Experience tells us that this is just a threat aimed at the Serbian government to get the government to raise the price of paper. Mainly for those publications which aren't needed.