The eighth session of the Privatisation Committee, held on 5 April, was attended by representatives of the Corruption Suppression Council, the Ministry of Economy and the Privatisation Agency.

The Committee continued discussing the Report of the Corruption Suppression Council of the Government of the Republic of Serbia. The Council’s chairperson, Verica Barac, informed the Committee of the large number of employees’ complaints received by the Council relating to infringements of privatisation procedure and non-fulfilment of obligations agreed. The Council is analysing the privatisation process in order to find shortcomings in legislation from an anti-corruption standpoint, with the aim of drafting proposals for remedying the shortcomings.

Mirko Cvetkovic, Director of the Privatisation Agency, explained that nationalised state-owned property used by a privatised company would not be privatised, and that it would be returned to its previous owners after the Denationalisation Act has been passed. He also underlined the fact that the Agency was instituting legal proceedings in all situations where it discovered problems in the privatisation process.

The Deputy Minister of Economy, Zora Simovic, stressed that changes to legislation were necessary, as was the strengthening of the Parliament’s role in the field of privatisation and public finances.

The Committee’s chairman, Milko Stimac, said that many aspects of the privatisation process should be reconsidered, including ways of monitoring buyers, relations with international economic institutions, control mechanisms, and competencies of institutions involved.

The session discussed the Report of the Ministry of Economy on the Activities of the Privatisation Agency for February 2004, along with the Agency’s Programme of Activities for March. Branka Radovic, the Agency’s Executive Director, told the Committee that sixty-nine companies had been put up for sale in February, and that four had been sold, one at a tender and the other three at auctions.

The Committee met representatives of Valjevo-based manufacturer Uzor. Zoran Skiljevic, President of the Textile and Leather Workers’ Union, informed the Committee that the majority shareholder had committed breaches of agreed obligations by making workers redundant without compensation and recapitalisation.

The Committee was informed of the fact that a request for the breach of the purchase and sale contract for Krusevac-based Zupa Socially-owned Enterprise.