...Dragoslav Ljubičić
The famous collapse Electric utilities of Serbia happened on December 21, 2021, when due to an attempt to innovate in the production of electricity under the progressive direction and under the supervision Milorad Grčić, mud was burned in TENT's thermoblocks, and the worried President Vučić expressed his desire to commit suicide by hanging himself from a chandelier. The crisis that followed led to the fact that a huge number of Serbian citizens installed the Energy Flux application in their mobile phones in order to monitor the operation of the electricity industry in the Republic of Serbia. In those days, everyone was looking at the phone following production, imports, the price on the spot market... Multiplying and adding up the loss of EPS until at the end of the crisis (at the end of 2022) that loss stopped at one billion and six hundred million euros.
In the meantime, "Mića went to do something else", and those affected by the crimes in "Ribnikar", Orašje and Mala Dubona, Novi Sad and the citizens-owners of EPS have weaned themselves from monitoring the aforementioned application. The media learned that already in 2022, the agile acting director of EPS, Miroslav Tomašević, with his team, started the process of recovering EPS from those "innovations" with enormous energy, expertise and knowledge. Financially, it stabilizes the company by skilfully "playing" on the electricity market, by intervening the import of the missing quantities of coal from neighboring countries and marking 2023 as the year that must be a turning point.
Somehow, at the same time when Tomasevic was appointed, Serbia also heard about Dubravka Đedović Negre, a young, ambitious bank employee, mother of four children, exemplary wife of French businessman, former rugby player and triathlete Christophe Negre. She replaced Zoran Mihajlović as Minister of Mining and Energy. The business ideas and plans of these two, at that moment the key people in the power industry, did not coincide from the very beginning, and since the lovable and cynically brash Dubravka, in contrast to the constantly mobile and closed to the media Tomašević, became closer to the heart of President Aleksandar Vučić, she managed to convince him that without the transition of JP EPS to AD EPS, with a new management structure and a Norwegian admixture in the modeling of the company, and the removal of Tomašević, there is no chance for business success. All this happened on June 15, 2023.
On that day, EPS had 1 tons of coal in its landfills, and 965 GWh of electricity in the reservoirs of hydropower plants, successfully completed annual overhauls and started a new investment cycle. Until that day, EPS achieved a financial profit for the year 000 of slightly more than half a billion euros. In 656, the Government of the Republic of Serbia allowed three increases in the price of electricity (May, September and November), so that the price of electricity received a market category, unlike the previous social one.
"FOR PEOPLE'S SAKE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
On the wave of Tomašević's run and his results, the new AD, with a new general director, a certain Živković who chairs the Executive Board that oversees the Supervisory Board under the leadership of President Oluf Ulseth, and everything under the watchful eye of the Assembly Dubravka Đedović - this time Handanović - was successful in 2023. for AD EPS, with a business success of slightly less than one billion euros. A significant success, but realistically, the new EPS leadership did not have enough time to spoil what the previous leadership had started.
In order to cover up the traces of Tomašević's existence and work in EPS, they handed him his resignation in September, and what will anyone who could ask them in the following days: "For God's sake, people, what are you doing?"
Namely, as early as 2024, it begins to reveal traces even though there was no snow. AD EPS will spend the same amount of money for the import of coal this year for 5 million tons as for the complete production from RB Kolubara (something around 22 million tons). This will increase the producer price of the final product of EPS, electricity, by 50 percent, because those 27 million tons cost twice as much as if all 27 million were produced in Kolubara. The rebalancing of plans (of course, always downwards in terms of production) creates the basis for the financial result at the end of the year to be in the positive, but it is important to know that Tomašević's team planned a profit of 74 billion dinars for 2024, and Dubravka Đedović's plan is 22 billion.
The arrival of foreigners in the leadership structures of EPS also brought something good to EPS because it is known that the politics of the President of Serbia has two faces. One "firm and steadfast" for domestic use, and the other lenient and condescending towards foreigners. The only positive move made by the new management of EPS is that they removed the levy of 36 billion dinars from the levy of EMS and ODS, due to network loss compensation, according to EPS.
The life of EPS employees is also very interesting, because they have signed two collective agreements, both with Đokina and Pizzi, more precisely with two wings of a union, formally none of which (Collective Agreement) is legal and, of course, , because of that, it was not published anywhere.
FALL IN VALUE
The salary policy is still completely unclear because even though all employees in AD EPS have contracts with one employer, they earn wages at different hourly rates depending on the branch in which they work (the Labor Law establishes a single hourly rate for the same employer).
AD EPS is far from capable and competent, even though they have repeatedly spent multi-million (in euros) sums of money to pay various consulting firms to develop a unique methodology for evaluating jobs based on complexity, responsibility and working conditions, and to adopt and legalize the same for their business in relation to work evaluation. They sent an offer to the union/unions on the introduction of a single value of the working hour, but with a change in the coefficients of the value of the workplace (the only constant value for determining the basic salary), without any analysis and professional work, but only giving importance to the value of the working hour.
Anyone who knows anything about economics and management knows that VRC is a quantity derived from the mass of wages, the current state of employment (the mass of coefficients in a given month as a result of employee turnover) and the number of hours worked, compensation and hours for increased earnings. Therefore, VRČ is a consequence of the unexpected valuation, the more or less random number and structure of employees and the planned mass of wages, which can be well, but also poorly planned.
Any anomaly in the HRC caused by inadequate planning or an unfavorable state of employment in the branch will be transferred to the coefficients and thus become a permanent anomaly in the evaluation of work. Basically, the progressive rampage continues in devaluing the wages of employees in EPS, which is best seen from the example of the ratio of wages in EPS and the rest of the economy of the Republic of Serbia (everywhere in Europe, this ratio is drastically in favor of employees in electricity companies). As the zero year of the progressive government - 2012 - that ratio was 1,85:1, and in 2024 that ratio is 1,11:1. Such a drop in the value of earnings in EPS is most vividly seen from the example that the pension of an EPS pensioner with a pensionable service of 2-3 years is higher than the earnings of an EPS employee at the same workplace from which the aforementioned pensioner left. Such a company has no chance of retaining someone who knows anything, is worth it and wants to work.
IRONING POLICY
And finally, another novelty was brought by the influence of three Norwegians in the Supervisory Board of AD EPS. Aside from the fact that no one has qualified to deny that the value of the monthly compensation for their work (and the other four members of the NO) is 20 euros per month, the justification for bringing them in was that they will significantly contribute to improving the percentage of the impact of production from hydropower compared to total production of electricity in the production capacities of AD EPS.
However, those of us who still follow the Energy Fluks app see something completely different. Although the year was really dry, it is unacceptable that for 30 days the production of electricity in EPS's hydroelectric power plants does not exceed 500 MW most of the day. Very often, this production is at the level of production from wind farms. It is obvious that the economic giants Handanović and Živković, guided by the idea that "it is important to turn around" (not turbines but money), and protecting themselves by the provisions of the Law on Energy and Supply of Electricity as the only electricity activity of general interest, import significant amounts of electricity every day , paying the same from 100-700 euros per MW, and selling it at 90, and to Chinese companies (Zidjin, Železara Smederevo...) and at 75 euros per MW.
The percentage of participation of production from renewable sources is easily increased (iron) when the production from thermoblocks goes down. Of course, this way of doing business of AD EPS is a textbook example of how something that is wanted to be alienated is devalued and destroyed in the policy of losing every type of sovereignty and independence. Just as greed and corruption killed 15 people in Novi Sad, so at this moment it seems (to anyone who knows anything about EPS) that the same reasons will destroy and alienate EPS, especially since there are already a lot of rumors that EPS (Serbia) does not exist money to repay the loans and that the lenders are already putting pressure to take possession of EPS (some say that they have already taken a certain amount of gold bars from the NBS treasury as collateral).
Resignations and prisons will then mean nothing because nothing will remain of value after this decades-long feast of greed, corruption, incompetence and betrayal of every national interest. There may be a chance, but only if he doesn't exclaim again: "I don't give Gazivode (EPS)!"
The author is the general secretary of the SDS and a trade union activist
