In 2008, the average balance on the account of the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund (PIO) in Prva banka, which was intended for pension payments, was several million euros, even outside the period when the bank received money to pay pensions, unlike all other banks in which the Fund had this type of account that year.

This is shown by a part of the research of the Action for Social Justice (ASJ), which focuses on the period from a decade and a half ago, when with the help of state-owned companies and funds, it was possible to save Prva banka from bankruptcy. The ASJ is in possession of a part of the official documentation obtained through the Law on Free Access to Information and from several whistleblowers, which has never been published before.

Last week, the Action for Social Justice published the first text from its research, which referred to the misuse of accounts for the construction of water supply systems on the Montenegrin coast for the benefit of the Prva banka (https://aspmne.com/zloupotreba-racuna-zbog-prve-banke/).

At the beginning of 2008, the initial balance of the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund account for the payment of pensions in Prva banka, based on the transfer from the previous year 2007, was over 4.3 million euros. At the same time, the initial balance of accounts for 2008 in Crnogorska komercijalna banka was 16.3 thousand euros, in Podgoricka banka about 250 euros, in Montenegro bank 2.8 thousand euros, in Hipotekarna banka less than 600 euros, and in Atlasmont bank a little over three thousand euros.

The account turnover card of the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund in Prva banka for 2008, which is in the possession of the Action for Social Justice, shows that, during the year, the amount of money in the account almost did not fall below one million euros. The total annual turnover of that account was about 90.5 million, and at the end of the year there were less than 2.2 million euros left on it, which were carried over to the next year of 2009 (in that year the total turnover was 95.3 million and only at the end of that year the balance on the account remained slightly over three thousand euros).

On the other hand, the turnover of the account of the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund in Crnogorska komercijalna banka for the payment of pensions for 2008 shows that the total turnover was about 134.3 million, at the end of the year the balance was 93.7 thousand, which were carried over to 2009. In 2008, the total turnover of the account of the Pension Insurance Fund in Podgoricka banka amounted to about 50.1 million, at the end of the year there were less than 2.5 thousand.

In 2008, the turnover of accounts in Montenegro Bank amounted to 4.3 million euros (at the end of the year there were 48 euros left on the account), in Atlasmont Bank less than 450 thousand (5.2 thousand remained on the account at the end of the year), and in Hipotekarna banka, the turnover was insignificant compared to the others – about 20 thousand euros.

Separate information shows that during 2008 and 2009 the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund had a larger number of time deposit contracts with Prva banka, in contrast to other banks, in which it mostly had contracts on “earmarked” term deposits (where earmarked time money most often served as collateral to cover overdraft loans).

In those two years, the Pension and Disability Fund had about 8.8 million deposits in Đukanović's bank (which were not collateral). In April 2008, it concluded a deposit agreement for about half a million euros, in August for 900 thousand, in mid-July of the following year for 3.5 million, at the beginning of September of that year for another 1.8 million, and in October 2009 for another two million euros.

All this is stated, among other things, in the information of the Ministry of Finance, as an explanation of the state of receivables on deposits of the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund, which at the beginning of 2010 (together with the Health Insurance Fund) was included in the Consolidated Account of the State Treasury.

In 2008 (and the following year), Prva banka, majority-owned by Aco Đukanović, brother of long-time Montenegrin President and Prime Minister Milo Đukanović, in which he also had a part of the ownership, had huge financial problems and at the end of that year the state lent it 44 million euros for liquidity. The way of repaying that loan, especially the first installment of 11 million, has been intriguing the Montenegrin public for a decade and a half.

The bank was saved by the sale of a package of shares in the state-owned Electric Power Industry in the second part of 2009, when tens of millions of euros were deposited in it, with a subordinated loan of 10 million euros from the energy company at the beginning of 2010, which formally met the capital adequacy criterion.

Action for Social Justice

Ines Mrdovic