Controversy Over Postal Savings Bank

After the agony in the Telecom Serbia, there turned up another personnel quarrel within the Post Office stock company. As soon as the P.O. Parliament elected a new (out of two), though it seems a ‘wrong’ candidate for the post of director of the Postal Saving Bank, the Commercial Court in Belgrade launched a famous ‘investiture of the previous law suit for determining the conditions of applying the process of liquidation’, which, ever since October 5th, became an official term for replacing the unbefitting personnel in public services and commerce, by depriving some companies of a normal legal status in order to change their leadership unexpectedly (it is a legal trick which can be described as a temporary slaughter of an ox in order to load it with a new cargo – the basic problem is how to resuscitate that ox once again).

It is not an argument merely over appointment, since the Postal Savings Bank has a very important role in the monetary and economic policy en general. Let us recall Mr. Milorad Nedeljkovic, director of the Postal Savings Bank in the Yugoslav Monarchy between 1925 and 1941, who was one of the principal pillars of the radical government in Belgrade at that time, but reviled in the majority of other regions in the country, since he was collecting the savings throughout the country, while concentrating the investments in accordance with orders coming from the then Prime Minister (in most cases it was Stojadinovic). By the way, it was he who had constructed that pompous edifice in which the main Post Office is situated today, having invested about 70 million (those) dinars in it. At first glance, the Commercial Court stands on one side of this affair – it is officially ‘independent’ in its estimation of who can and who cannot be registered as a new director; – on the other side, there is the Parliament of the Postal Savings Bank, which is by its own statute, authorised to elect its director, following the suggestion given by the Managing Board, which in turn was allotted by the Parliament of Serbia. The next layer of this affair divulges a high degree of involvement on the part of the Democratic Party and its ministers, who have already ‘besieged’ to a great extent everything that has to do with post office and communications, at both republic and federal levels. On the other side of the dispute, more towards the second layer (according to the currently acting president of the Commercial Court, Goran Kljajevic), there is Governor of the National Bank of Yugoslavia, Mladjan Dinkic, who has given his consent to the other candidate – the one who was not Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic’s first choice. However, I would not call that a definite dispute on the relation Djindjic-Dinkic. It rather appears that the actual mess in the Postal Savings Bank stems from a number of other causes, but it burst out when Dinkic, who was formally authorised for such a thing, agreed on a decision which was brought regardless of Djindjic’s preference – if there was any at all.

Perhaps the fact that the Managing Board, which is in this case correlated to the Serbian Government (the Republic is the major joint owner of P.O.), proposed two candidates for the directorial post to the P.O. Parliament – can be understood in a different way, and not only as some kind of lack of power on the part of Prime Minister Djindjic to impose his own will or as a deficit of wisdom to let everyone do his part of the job – money issues to the Governor, taxes to the Minister of Finances, communications to the Minister of Communications, etc.

In this case, it is not an attempt of penetration of ‘democratic principles’, of presenting more than one candidate even for commercial posts, so it would be worth rejecting a comical hypothesis that the stock holders’ Parliament was expected to open a debate on which of the two candidates is more suitable, more expert, more trustworthy or honorable to take over the post, more favourite among employees and the public, more devoted to family and patriotic aims. Members of such parliaments always give their votes as prescribed, so it is obvious, by another signal that appeared within the ‘major joint owner’, i.e. the republic leadership, that something serious is going on.

If it comes about a dispute when a (para) state treasury is expected to appoint its new manager, it is always a matter of disagreement between two or more political elites – so, before letting ourselves comment on this situation, we should know a bit more about – why the P.O. Managing Board factually remained divided concerning its decision, and why it proposed two candidates for the post of director, which was eventually used against Djindjic? Or, perhaps, the NBY Governor Dinkic is not very fond of the idea of a very close relationship between the main post office treasurer and, by definition, the main state consumer – the Republic Prime Minister, so he placed his trust in a man who would be more courageous to guard the post office’s funds than would the owner of the treasury. Maybe it occurred to Dinkic that money should definitely be kept away from politicians.

The most precarious thing in the whole affair, even if it were only a mass media presentation, is, by all means, the interference of the syndicate in the personnel matters, which are by their elementary nature, the owners’ (that is the authorised state organs’) preserve. The promotion of such principles according to which the Serbian Government or the owners of some corporation are supposed to ‘lobby’ their employees in favour of their preferred directorial or other candidates – would cause disastrous consequences and Serbia would, if nothing else be compelled to resume another form of dictatorship. There is no such efficacy in any state, or any economy in the world, in which Prime Minister is not allowed to ‘modify’ the salaries in the public sector, because then he would not be able to appoint his preferred director in that corporation, who would in turn put into effect any economic policy the former happened to design. It is partly Djindjic’s own fault that the allegedly democratically orientated syndicates always interfere in every attempt on re-establishing order in public services – since he has begun his campaign with too many populist phrases and too many reassuring smiles. However, those syndicates are full of somewhat spoiled proletariats, who have always been better paid than the rest in our economy sector, so it gave them an opportunity to pretend to be superior to others. Such a heartbreaking approach towards the population and labour can also be detected in the majority of our media, with a particular reference to those who have some conflict over interest with the executive authorities. Thus, we are now in an odd situation – big magnates are constantly pushing syndicates and workers, positioning them as a protection wall against reforms, which, on the other hand, are always announced in theory, but never executed in practice.