PROINTER GONE , COMES ELINC: Dodik glorifies Russia, and China gets multimillion-dollar secret deals

Last year, Dodik sent Prime Minister Višković on a tour of China, promising all kinds of things just so that China would buy a couple of hundred million bonds, but instead of money came new deals for Chinese companies, which are usually disputed due to the secrecy of the contract content. The last example is the contract with the Chinese company ELINC. Republika Srpska gives tens of millions without coverage, while barely paying salaries to budget beneficiaries.
Years ago, the president of the BiH entity Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, visited Russia for a few minutes of meeting and taking photos with President Vladimir Putin, then announcing a loan of hundreds of millions of marks. But Russia does not give money so easily, even if Dodik was its great propagator. The President of the RS also circled around the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, he was looking for investors from Azerbaijan to Saudi Arabia, he visited the Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, but there is no money.

ELINC CAN BE INSTEAD OF PROINTER
The last hopes are directed towards China. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić had to provide Dodik with a seat at the table, even if it was far away, during the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Belgrade.
China has money, but without a guarantee that this money will be returned, and at the same time earn something, it will not be "pumped in" as Dodik wants and imagines. In addition to collateral in the form of state property, doing business with China implies investment loans from their banks, conditional on the engagement of Chinese companies and workers. At the same time, all these jobs are accompanied by delays, suspicions of corruption and especially lack of transparency.
Last year, Dodik sent Prime Minister Višković on a tour of China, promising all kinds of things just so that this country would buy a couple of hundred million bonds, but instead of money, new jobs for Chinese companies followed, which are usually disputed due to the secrecy of the contract content.

The last example is the contract with the Chinese company ELINC. As the portal Capital announced, it is about the procurement of software for digital protection in entity institutions, worth 57 million marks. ELINC got the job on the basis of an agreement behind closed doors, without a tender and an explanation of the contract.

"Before signing the contract with the Chinese, as far as we know, an analysis of the state of software and protection in the public sector was made and they came to the conclusion that the situation is catastrophic. How disastrous when we previously gave hundreds of millions of marks for various software, mostly to companies that ended up under sanctions," Andrijana Pisarević, a journalist from the Capital portal, loudly asks.

One of the sanctioned companies is the company "Prointer" in which Dodik's son Igor was "only an associate". As Žurnal wrote, since 2015, Prointer has received 1,147 contracts worth 330,810,460 KM in the IT sector with public institutions.
Now the Government of RS claims that digital protection is in a bad state, so it is a logical question why so many millions were spent that requires the engagement of the Chinese ELINC. At the same time, they refuse to provide information about the details of the contract signed for 10 years.

This company is engaged in the production of military equipment and software, it is owned by "China Electronic Corporation", which has been on the American "black list" for years, in the "Non-SDN" section, which implies the prohibition of any investment or trading of securities with them, with monitoring of all their transactions and operations outside of China.
There are numerous allegations that China uses embedded equipment from the field of information technology for espionage. The embassy of the United States of America reminded us of this, especially apostrophizing the non-transparency of this business.

"The unclear nature of this contract, including its conclusion outside of normal public procurement, raises serious questions about the services provided, the potential risks to the residents of Republika Srpska and the reason why the Government of RS chose a company known to be part of the military industrial complex of the People's Republic of China. instead of those with a better reputation. We appeal to the officials in Banja Luka to be transparent and provide relevant information about this contract so that the residents of Republika Srpska understand how their tax money is being spent," the US embassy told FENA.
THE CHINESE BELT AROUND BiH

It is unlikely that Dodik will change his position on doing business with Chinese companies. This was the case even after the warning to eliminate business with the Chinese company "Huawei" during the introduction of 5G technology, because it was estimated that China's infiltration into that high-tech network could be a security risk, and Chinese law obliges companies to forward to the government "the knowledge they have acquired in other countries and their civil services".

"We have very positive experiences working with this company. She's here. We know that from the point of view of the West, there are some pressures related to their work, but I want to say that Republika Srpska did not agree to take certain measures in BiH against any company from China, Russia or any part of the world, including this company. Milorad Dodik said two years ago on this occasion.

There are numerous examples of disputed and non-transparent deals with Chinese companies. The photo shows the "construction site" of the section of the Vukosavlje-Brčko highway. The foundation stone was laid in August 2022, two years later the "works" are still at the same location.
The construction of the Banjaluka - Prijedor highway is particularly illustrative. At the end of December 2018, the Government of the RS signed a still secret concession agreement for the construction of the highway with the Chinese company "Shandong Hi-Speed International". The length of the route is 42 kilometers, the construction deadline is spring 2026. Five and a half years later, this is what it looks like so far.
More about doing business with Chinese partners will soon be presented in four video stories prepared by the portals Capital, Fokus, Tačno.net, info-radar, Hercegovina-info and Žurnal.
"I find it sad that at this moment, when Republika Srpska really has serious problems, the first thing is that the leadership is sanctioned, accounts are closed, companies go out of business because they are under sanctions, people lose their jobs, the budget is completely empty, but no, no one it doesn't say let's sit down and make some strategy on how to survive. They continue to sign dubious contracts, do dubious things and absolutely do not think about the public interest but their own," says Capitala journalist Andrijana Pisarević.
And indeed, no matter how much Milorad Dodik and his aides whom he installed in the executive power deny, the budget of BiH. entity Republika Srpska has a problem with liquidity. In recent days, they have been selling bonds twice as much as announced, 22 million instead of 10 million, followed by new issues in the following days. According to some unofficial estimates, the budget on a daily basis lacks 3 million marks to "cover" this year as much as possible. That is why the news about the payment of pensions or salaries and contributions to budget users is published as a breaking news.
STABILITY BASED ON NEW BORROWINGS

Educators and health workers in certain institutions, even when they somehow get paid, late contributions for health insurance and related fees. The paradox is that health workers cannot exercise the right to treatment at certain intervals due to irregular insurance payments.

"Contribution payments are not late for all health institutions, some had problems. Maybe a few days of delay in insurance payments doesn't sound like much, but when employees in the healthcare sector need to have an operation or have an appointment for some examinations, they are prevented from doing so or have to pay for the service, but the refund is not always safe or fast either. Basically, there is uncertainty among people about what will happen and how it will happen next," Mirko Šerbedžija, president of the Professional Union of Nurses and Technicians of RS, told Žurnal.
Debts to suppliers are a special story, and these data are carefully hidden. Statements by the President of the entity, then Prime Minister Radovan Višković and Minister of Finance Zora Vidović about a "stable financial situation" were soon canceled by announcements about new debt obligations.

Milorad Dodik blames the US sanctions for everything, because if they weren't there, they could transfer money from some unknown foreign accounts to the entity. On the other hand, Prime Minister Višković excitedly announces that he has found foreign creditors about whom he "doesn't want to say anything", or as the people say, "not to scold".

“Have they been found? - Who are they? - I can't tell you and I won't tell you so I wouldn't jeopardize what I'm doing. And the budget, I would like you to inform me the moment something is late. We regularly service our obligations," said Višković, as if luck were an additional debt, in addition to the hundreds of millions of existing debt with questionable repayment possibilities.

Dodik's recent message from Turkey that 500 million euros have been provided for the construction of the Belgrade-Sarajevo highway section seemed almost surreal in the general lack of money in the budget, without, of course, additional details, who is providing such money and under what conditions. Again, many questions, and no official answers.

Ultimately, would anyone be surprised if in the future the news was published that the above-mentioned Chinese ELINC will do business with the RS institutions through some newly formed company in which Igor Dodik, by chance, was hired, of course, only as a consultant.

CONCLUSION

The reason for the publication of the text is the recently signed secret contract between the Government of the Republic of Srpska and the Chinese company ELINC, which is engaged in the production of military equipment and software, and is owned by "China Electronic Corporation", which was put on the "black list" by the American authorities. In addition to this, a number of other, non-transparent contracts of the RS authorities with Chinese creditors and companies related to investments in (mainly road) infrastructure are also problematic. As the details of the contract are unknown to the public, one can only speculate about the types and amount of obligations undertaken by the Government of the RS, at the expense of the citizens.

The fact that after the sanctions imposed by the US administration on officials and companies from Republika Srpska, the budget of the RS is in crisis, and instead of measures, the authorities borrow for projects from (mostly) Chinese creditors under conditions unknown to the public. Although the authorities of the RS cannot pledge state property for the funds they borrow from Chinese creditors (which is probably the cause of large delays in the realization of certain projects), debts are piling up, and non-transparent contracts give reason to suspect that the debts are not at all favorable for the RS. The consequences of this kind of action by the authorities will first of all be felt by the citizens of the RS, but also of BiH as a whole.