29.03.2023.

THE CHINESE CONQUER RS: The government bought and sold land to a Chinese company over which they will build a new highway

The RS Ministry of Transport and Communications does not want to answer questions regarding Chinese ownership of plots of land along the highway route. The questions are addressed to the Republican Administration for Geodetic and Property Legal Affairs of the Republic of Srpska, which for the past few years has been managed by Dragan Stanković, the son of Milorad Dodik Buda Stanković's godfather, otherwise a new "resident" of the American blacklist.

Inforadar research team

Shandong International (SDHS CSI BiH), the Chinese company that is building the highway from Banja Luka to Prijedor, is the owner of several parcels of land in Republika Srpska right on the section of that highway, Inforadar learns.

Our portal has been confirmed by several sources that the Chinese partner of the Government of the Republika Srpska in the construction of this highway has become the owner of plots in the town of Lamovita, right next to the route of the future highway.

This entire procedure, as happens in all the same or similar cases, was carried out in an insufficiently transparent manner and points to corruption and clientelism. The public was not informed about land transactions, first between private landowners and the Government of Republika Srpska, and then between the Government and the Chinese company Shandong International, which is stationed in Republika Srpska.


IN THE GOVERNMENT OF RS, THEY ANSWER - WITH SILENCE

Our almost two-month attempts to find out more about these strange transfers of ownership between individuals, the Government of Republika Srpska and the company that is a partner of the Government in the construction of the Banjaluka-Prijedor highway were in vain.

There is not much official information about the cooperation between the Government of the Republic of Srpska and the Chinese company Shandong International, because the Government of the Republic of Srpska does not like to reveal its dealings with the Chinese to the public. The best proof of the secrecy of the RS Government's dealings with the Chinese is the fact that the Prime Minister and the Government persistently refuse to publish the highway construction contract with this Chinese company, justifying it by the wishes of Shandong.

"As far as we are concerned, we can announce it today, but the Chinese partner is against it", said recently, during the signing of the contract with a consortium of Chinese companies on the construction of the section of the highway from Brčko to Bijeljina, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska Radovan Višković.

He then announced that the contract for the construction of that section, which is being built by another Chinese company, will not be presented to the public either.

The Government and the Ministry of Transport are no less secretive when it comes to land in Republika Srpska, whose owners "overnight" became Chinese.

The Ministry of Transport and Communications does not want to answer questions regarding Chinese ownership of plots of land along the highway route. Questions are addressed to the Republic Administration for Geodetic and Property Legal Affairs of the Republika Srpska (RUGIP), which for the past few years has been managed by Dragan Stanković, the son of Milorad Dodik Buda Stanković's godfather.

"Regarding your questions related to the purchase and sale of immovable property in the process of expropriation, we direct you to contact the Republic Administration for Geodetic and Property Legal Affairs of the Republic of Srpska with your request," reads the reply from the Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Srpska.


The director of RUGIP Dragan Stanković, who has been under sanctions and on the "black list" of the United States of America (USA) since ten days ago, did not answer the specific question of who in RUGIP is considered to be the owner of the plot in Lamovita.

Avoiding the answer to the question of who is the owner of that plot at the headquarters of RUGIP is justified by the fact that it is not information "in accordance with the Law on Freedom of Access to Information, but represents data from the public record of data of the real estate cadastre" which means, as explained by Stanković in the answer, that a "third party" cannot, without a valid reason, obtain data on the ownership of certain immovable properties.

BOUGHT AND SOLD AND BECAME HOUSE GUESTS

Confirmation of our information, however, came from the Prijedor regional unit of this administration, from where we were told that the owner of the plot in Lamovita is a Chinese company.

"The owner of the plot in question 1972/7 K.O. Lamovita is SDHS-CSI BH DOO Banjaluka. The plot was formed by dividing it from the already mentioned owner. For other data, it is necessary to submit a request for the chronology of enrollment - archival documentation", we received a reply from the Prijedor Regional Unit.

Inforadar learns that the Government of Republika Srpska, in the process of expropriation for the construction of the Banjaluka - Prijedor highway, first purchased this plot as part of a much larger plot from the previous owner, a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina from Republika Srpska, and then sold the same plot to the Chinese company SDHS-CSI BH DOO.

Interestingly, an overpass will now be built on that plot, and in the meantime its price has skyrocketed, say our sources.

Given that the Government refuses to communicate or comment on this procedure in any way, it is not officially known at what price the Government bought the land from the original owners, and at what price it later sold the same land to the Chinese. As it is unknown how much the plot costs at the moment, that is, what will be (constructed) on that land and at what price.

The answer to these questions would undoubtedly reveal to us the essence of the complete land-ownership transaction and his intention.

Unofficially, the purchase price per square meter in the expropriation of land for the construction of the Banjaluka-Prijedor highway in that part of the route amounts to five convertible marks per square meter. That's how much Republika Srpska paid for expropriation. The government does not know how much the Chinese paid for the land after that.

The construction of the local road-overpass on the plot owned by the Chinese company SDHS will be carried out by Everit d.o.o. According to available official data, that company is owned by SDHS-CSI and was founded only after the arrival of the Chinese company in Republika Srpska and the conclusion of a contract with the Government of Republika Srpska.

CONTRACT AND EVERYTHING ELSE - SECRET

Nedeljko Čubrilović, who was appointed as the Minister of Transport of the RS in the new Government of the RS, did not want to answer our journalist's questions regarding the Chinese ownership of plots in Lamovita. Čubrilović, hearing the question, just walked past our team.

Member of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, Nebojša Vukanović, says that everything related to the construction of the Banjaluka-Prijedor highway is shrouded in secrecy.

"The same is true of the sale of these salaries, as long as these deals are done non-transparently, behind the eyes of the public, there is a suspicion that there is a lot of abuse and crime. If everything was clean, of course no one would have the need to hide the contract", says Vukanović.


SDS member in the RS National Assembly, Vukota Govedarica, says that neither he nor any of the opposition MPs in the National Assembly know anything about the construction of the Banjaluka-Prijedor highway and the purchase of land along the route of that highway.

And he recalls the fact that the public has not seen the government's contract with the Chinese company that is building the highway.

"Here, the matter is clear, if everything is correct, that the Government together with the Chinese knew which route the highway would take, bought certain plots and locations from individuals and, in agreement with the Chinese, sold them to them, whether at a price that suited them or suited them Government - I don't want to get into that right now. When you have a hidden contract, there is a lot of room for abuses, the only question is to what extent these abuses are expressed", says Govedarica.

As expected, the Chinese company Shandong International did not answer our questions regarding the fact that they became the owners of the plot along the Banjaluka-Prijedor highway route. By the way, this company does not communicate with the public in the Republic of Srpska.

In the meantime, this Chinese company started the construction of the Banjaluka-Prijedor highway and the works began near Prijedor. According to what the government has told the public so far, the construction of the highway is financed by the Chinese. Republika Srpska undertook to pay an annual fee for the availability of the highway in the next thirty years, after construction, in the amount of thirty million marks.

The increase in transparency of the deal between the Government of the Republika Srpska and the Chinese company was not helped by the fact that the District Court in Banja Luka passed a verdict that marked the highway construction contract as a public interest. According to the complaint of the organization Transparency International BiH, the court annulled the decision of the Ministry of Transport, which rejected this organization's request for inspection of the contract.

"The court annulled the decision and ordered the Ministry to issue another decision in accordance with the merits of the verdict, which states that this is public information. According to that, we should have already received the contract, but nothing came of it," Srđan Traljić, from Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina, told Inforadar.

The contract is still a secret, as is how and in what way the Chinese company became the owner of the land in Republika Srpska on the route of the highway - and at what price.