Kentkart sued the state of Serbia: What is the state of public transport in Belgrade more than a year after the termination of the contract with the Turkish company? – Economy

Šapić said that the company “Kentkart”, which for years collected tickets in city transport, sued the city after the termination of the contract and demanded compensation of 17 million euros.

“They controlled a system worth 250 million euros per year.” I claim that they cannot get more than one million euros, and I think that it will even be the other way around, because we have evidence that they have set the system back,” emphasized Šapić.

However, according to Danas’ unofficial information, the City of Belgrade, at least not yet, has not been sued.

Namely, the original company Kentkart from Turkey sued the Republic of Serbia for violating the foreign investment.

It can also be seen on the portal of the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), where this case exists, which was registered on April 1 of this year.

However, there are no more details about this case, because the arbitration is ongoing.

We remind you that in February of last year, the City of Belgrade terminated the contract with the Turkish company Kentkart, which until then controlled the ticket collection system in the capital city.

“After the termination of the contract with Kentkart, Belgrade will have a more efficient ticket collection system,” Šapić promised at the time.

He repeated yesterday that since the termination of that contract, the price of tickets in city transport has been reduced, their sales have increased and “better functioning of public transport than before” has been ensured.

However, according to the director of the Center for Local Self-Government (CLS) Nikola Jovanovic The City Transport Company (GSP) currently has large debts.

“It is true that GSP owes suppliers 6.5 billion dinars. This is proof that the work is done poorly and that the company is pushing itself into debt, not only itself, but also its subcontractors and suppliers,” he points out for Danas.

Jovanović explained that there is another problem.

“Of those obligations, 1.5 billion are due, and five billion beyond the legal deadline, which means that a lot of interest is due and flowing,” he states.

As for Kentkart, Jovanović believes that it would have been better to terminate the contract by mutual agreement, rather than enter into an open media and legal conflict.

“It can cause a big loss to the city budget, because of the lawsuits that are being prepared,” he warns.

This is also confirmed by the president of the GSP trade union “Centar GSP Beograd”, Ivan Banković, who states that the Kentkart lawsuit was expected and that many had warned about it.

“It is worrisome that a high-ranking city official has such an attitude towards public funds and the damage that can be caused to the budget.” “Sapic still presents it as a success,” he says.

As for the lawsuit against the City of Belgrade that Šapić referred to, Banković states that he has not seen it.

“I have not seen such a document and it was certainly not in the materials for the Provisional Authority, nor did it come as information.” It would be normal if such information was before the Provisional Authority, but it was not,” he says.

Banković points out that regardless of whether the defendant is the Republic of Serbia or the City of Belgrade, the citizens will certainly pay for it in one way or another.

“Sapić has been claiming for a year that he has epoch-making evidence against Kentkart, but we in the public haven’t seen it. If you are sure of that evidence, then come out with it publicly, convince the citizens that it was really harmful. I’m not defending the Kentkart company, but we need to see the evidence and we’ll all support it if it’s really that harmful,” explains our interlocutor.

He also indicates that we do not have information on how much ticket sales have increased or decreased, as well as which tickets are sold, how much income we have…

“Sapić said that we have a higher number of sold tickets, not that the collection has increased.” He did not say that we have more income based on those ticket sales. I would be very interested to see any indication of whether we have more or less revenue, if our ticket sales have increased and if so, which tickets? This is important because if we reduced the number of monthly tickets and increased the number of individual tickets of 50 dinars, we have gone backwards”, claims Banković.

He explains that the goal is to have as many users as possible who pay a monthly subscription.

“In that case, we can count on that money and make calculations, but if we have dissuaded them from making monthly payments, we have taken a few steps back and essentially can only have a deficit,” Banković believes.

As for the debts of GSP, he says that these are data from the Business Program of PUK GSP Belgrade from the first quarter of this year.

“But the business program for this year looks back on the business in the previous period and these are some expected balances. If we look at the net loss of GSP for last year, it will be 867 million dinars, but it would have been significantly higher if there had not been an increase in ongoing subsidies by the City of Belgrade”, explains our interlocutor.

He claims that the problem is that we have bad leadership and that we don’t know what our priorities are.

“We save where we shouldn’t save, which is vehicle maintenance, preventive inspections, and regular replacement of spare parts.” And then we pay for the fact that the vehicles have more complex breakdowns, the repair of which takes longer and costs more,” says Banković.

The GSP of Belgrade did not respond to Danas’ questions regarding this topic until the publication of this text.