Opposition Party: Solar Plants Four Times Cheaper than in Serbia Being Built in Egypt

Solar Panels(BETAPHOTO/Nevena Zaric)

The Serbia Center party said on March 27 that since the signing of a contract on the construction of 1,000 MW of capacities in solar power plants in late 2024, worth EUR1.9 billion, there had been no serious information on progress in project implementation.

The contract was signed by power utility EPS CEO Dusan Zivkovic, without the necessary approval from the Supervisory Board, and Mining and Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic, all under the present all-seeing eye of President Aleksandar Vucic, but over the past year and a half, instead of implementation, all the project has is the useless parroting of the signatories, the party's Energy Committee said in a statement.

The party pointed out that in Egypt the second half of a project that would ultimately have 1,000 megawatts of installed solar power and 200 megawatt-hours of battery storage room - identical to the project in Serbia - was being completed.

"Where does the key, huge problem occur? Unlike the domestic solar [sector] where the fate of investment funds is a highly uncertain and changeable category, the Egyptian project is wholly financially transparent. The African Development Bank is taking a significant part in the project (160 million dollars), [along with] the EIB (150 million) and the EBRD (more than 100 million). What is there in Egypt, what do they know there that our rulers do not? So instead of Dubai, because bombs are falling there now anyway, Vucic, Dubravka, Zivkovic - urgently hit the road and head to Egypt," SRCE said.

The party added that those were just some of the indicators of enormous corruption in Serbia.