Serbia:EPS ready for winter, all overhauls completed and restructuring underway confirms EPS CEO Obradovic

Published on 2. September 2013., News Serbia Energy

Power Utility Company of Serbia (EPS) is ready for the upcoming winter season and repairs in all sectors come to the end, says EPS acting director, Aleksandar Obradovic. He said that also during the summer, when the energy consumption was increased, all customers had a reliable supply by electricity, and the completed ​​repair jobs provided stability of the system in the coming winter.

Within the reorganization, in the EPS started the analysis of jobs, which should be completed by the end of the year.  Obradovic said that in the EPS would be jobs for the young and professional staff, because the conditions in which EPS worked were changed in an open market competition, and for such a business, he said, EPS would require new ideas and creative and young people.

“I appeal to all the people who think that they can contribute to the EPS business to follow our employment ads and apply for all the vacancies,” he said, pointing out that the problem of EPS also is age structure, because the age average of employers is 45 years.

In some areas, as he said, we have a staff lack, especially on difficult jobs – fitters, miners, engineers at the plant, and on the other hand, we have many employers in the administration, said Obradovic.

He said that the EPS has to complete the restructuring process through corporatization and centralization, which aim is to increase the company profitability.

Reminding that the Serbian government adopted the starting points for the EPS reorganization in November last year, which defines exactly how the company should be reorganized,  Obradovic said that, for now, most of that starting  points are not in the hands of the EPS management, but other agencies and Government as the EPS founder.

Creating an environment for the fulfillment of the starting points is not in the management power, because the corporate way of administration also requires the statute change and the founding documents change, even the change of EPS legal form, said Obradovic.

“When these conditions would be completed, then management will be able to go into the concrete changes and the company reorganization. From the starting points we only completed part linked to the establishment of the “EPS Supply” and the rest is to establish a distribution system operator with the planned centralization,” he added.

EPS is now, as he recalled, the parent company, with its 13 affiliated companies, which operate quite independently.

The idea is to make some savings precisely in the corporatization and centralization of various functions – legal, financial, IT, human resources. Because there is no need to do some things for 13 times in all companies, but leads it commonly, said Obradovic.

In the starting points, as he said, it clearly states that one more supplier and distribution system operator should be established, and not to have five, 10 or 20, and then again to create new companies, with new directors.

Source; Serbia Energy/EPS