Balkan Stream gas pipeline (BETAPHOTO/DRAGAN GOJIC)
Sinisa Jankovic, a former Serbian Interior Ministry inspector and member of the Task Force for Investigating 24 Questionable Privatizations, told the Sept. 7 edition of the Nova daily that his team was disbanded just before its planned investigation of Srbijagas, the publicly-owned natural gas company which has been operating at huge losses.
The Task Force for Investigating 24 Questionable Privatizations was founded on Sept. 4, 2012 – after the Serbian Progressive Party came into power – and was active until November 2014.
“Our investigations led us to Srbijagas, but as soon as we began [looking into the company] we faced obstructions. At the time, Dusan Bajatovic was CEO [of Srbijagas] as well. We were preparing a new operation – the plan was for about 100 operatives to work at Srbijagas for six months,” Jankovic explained.
However, the disbanding of the task force halted this operation, Jankovic said, and no inspectors ever set foot in Srbijagas. In his interview for Nova, the former investigator went on to list the many instances of malfeasance his team had managed to discover along with the magnitude of damages this caused the state.
The task force was dissolved under Police Director Milorad Veljovic, who initially stated that the team was “scattered” but continued to operate. Veljovic subsequently said that the task force was “too costly” to operate, although its investigators uncovered about a billion euros in damages caused by corruption.
To get full access to all content of interest see our
Subscription offer
Or
Register for free
And read up to 5 articles each month.
Already have an account? Please Log in.