The first man of the Power Utility Company complains that there are the 14 financial, IT and PR directors. Aleksandar Obradovic, acting director general of Serbia Power Utility Company said that this public company have 650 directors, and that it lost 100.000 EUR daily due to the cumbersome administration. He also said that he did not need so many Directors to make profit.
– The business system like this is unsustainable and therefore will be changed as soon as possible. Indeed there is no business logic that EPS has 14 financial directors, 14 IT directors, 14 PR directors, and then each of them has its services, directorates, sectors. It is clear that such administration is cumbersome and it has to stop, Obradovic warned even last winter at the New Year meeting with reporters, and repeated it yesterday again.
What EPS acting Director wanted to say?
That his hands are tied to do anything by itself. That must await the government decision that EPS from a public company passes into the joint-stock company in order to avoid the incorporation, and that the responsibility in the EPS, as he likes to say, “Finally gets its full name and last name “.
However acting director owes public to say how many new people have come during his tenure. Sources close to Obradovic claim that more than 110 new employees at all levels of management were set on the leader positions with his signature, whose average salary is officially 145.000 dinars.
Among them is one ballet dancer, who, as the media repeatedly reported, from the podium of “Zvezda Granda” came on the assistant position of a.d.g. Obradovic.
Given that the new government will be formed before the 1st May, it is unlikely that the EPS in the first quarter of this year, or until the end of March, as it was announced, will move from public company into a joint stock company, when translated means EPS will continue to lose 100.000 euros daily.
Additional EPS problem is that this is a public company and has 10 levels of governance, the Supervisory Board, the Director, Deputy Director, why Obradovic likes to say that EPS is state within the state.
Although many see exit of the whole situation in the EPS privatization, in this moment, as also confirmed the state, it is out of the question.
What is the solution then?
Privatization opponents have to agree also with the fact that the situation in the NIS was the same as in EPS now before sale to “Gazprom Neft”. Nothing, however, was changed when NIS from public enterprise, which EPS is today, moved into joint-stock company (which Obradovic desires so much), so the question is what will happen when the government finally gives the green light to the change of the EPS status.
Will it mean that they will re-appoint a.d.g Obradovic, clean up all those who were brought along political lines on their jobs positions before and during his tenure, and these are always a lot, because this public enterprise has always been a nurseries of political staff over which the state has led social policy on electricity price.
New NIS boss, when this company moved from the public into joint-stock company in 2009th, he found more than 12.500 employees with 700 directors! Then on every 18 workers in the NIS came one director. After six years of privatization the Russian boss made the cut and today, according to unofficial data, NIS employs about 5.700 workers, including the 350 managers at all levels, from the Department Director to the Director General. So, management and staffing are halved, and NIS has made profit for years, and this year also shares dividends.
According to the latest available data, which EPS submitted to the Ministry of Economy, this company employs 28.857 people, and it is speculated for years that between 5.000 and 10.000 workers have been redundant. Precisely clerks. Number of employees in EPS undoubtedly burdens the company business because, let’s say, an energy company in Norway has about half of the staff , and records profit of millions, says Radomir Markovic from the EPS Association of Small Shareholders , adding that for the past year EPS Directorates , in addition to the existing redundant administration , plus a number of new staff.
Thus, in addition to the opening of new unnecessary Directorates, there is no other news. Office of the Directorates in Subsidiaries are as hives, laden with officials with the obvious lack of welders, machinists, electricians, miners, and others, he says.
The elections are over. Many of the levers of authority will be only in the hands of one party, which precisely has appointed Obradovic as the chief of the EPS. He has been in “position of acting director general” for less than two years. It’s time to resolve his, but also the EPS status, but also to reform public enterprises in order that our power utility works not like NIS, then at least not to be a burden on citizens.
Source; Serbia Energy
