The Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapić's Op-Ed: The Facts We Don't Hear Due to Their Noise

At the inauguration of the US President John F. Kennedy in January 1961, one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, Robert Frost, read his famous poem, The Gift Outright, which begins with a touching verse: “The land was ours before we were the land’s”. I recalled those verses on the night of August 30^th, overwhelmed with a sense of freedom and debt. The debt to those whom this is yet to become land, to future generations of daughters and sons of Montenegro, to whom someone wanted to leave only one legacy - divisions.

Since the first day of the new government, the defeated oligarchy of the DPS and its satellites, unprepared to accept the loss of power and privileges, has tried and is trying unsuccessfully, by provoking incidents, generating divisions and abusing sensitive identity - ethnic and religious – issues, to conceal economic crime against this country and to gain for itself the legitimacy of the so-called exclusive protector of the state and national rights of the people, all with the aim of creating the illusion that stability of Montenegro is not possible without it. Recent events, however, have confirmed that the cause of all the incidents that have taken place in our country in the last year has been instructed precisely by the aforementioned political-criminal caste. With regard to its noise and tensions it produces, including choral solidarity from certain irresponsible addresses, which say that "the expert government turned out to be a failed experiment, which didn’t yield results" I would like to remind all Montenegrin citizens of the important facts:

- Thanks to the activities of this Government, Montenegro will record economic growth of 10% in 2021.

- Unlike 2020, when the income from tourism amounted to only €144 million, this year's income from the tourist season amounts to about €700 million.

- In the period from June to August 2021, a budget surplus of over €100 million was achieved.

- This season's VAT revenues (nearly €209 million) are at a higher level than in the record 2019, when they amounted to about €196 million, which is the result of an excellent summer tourist season, but also increased discipline due to the introduction of electronic fiscalization of cash registers.

- Deposit in banks in 2021 increased by nearly €400 million, and exports of goods by €60 million.

- Montenegrin public debt was reduced from 103% of GDP (which was the amount of public debt in 2020) to 88% of GDP in June this year.

- The above described stabilization of Montenegrin public finances, additionally enabled: introduction of child allowance for all children up to the age of six, provision of free textbooks for all primary school children in Montenegro (worth more than €2 million), and increase of minimum wage by 13%, including old-age benefits.

- The Government of Montenegro concluded an important hedging arrangement with two European and two American banks in July this year, thus protecting the country from currency risk and reducing the interest rate for the loan taken from the Chinese Exim Bank (for the highway) from 2% interest in Dollars, to 0,88% in Euros. Thus, we will save eight million annually, which will go directly to the budget.

- Such a committed public finance management has created the preconditions for Montenegro to achieve the largest capital budget in its history in 2022, which will make it a large construction site.

- A new national airline company, Air Montenegro, was established and launched within a record period of time, while its first commercial flight was organized only four months after its establishment. In the meantime, regular and seasonal flights to Belgrade, Ljubljana, Istanbul, Zurich and Sarajevo have been launched.

- National Council for the Fight against High-Level Corruption has been established, which has already demystified the processes of illegal allocation of housing loans and apartments under favorable conditions, including publishing of a part of the documentation on the construction of the first section of the highway.

- This Government organized the largest narcotics seizure in the history of Montenegro - more than a ton of cocaine in Zeta, and adopted the Decision to ban the storage of tobacco products within the Free Zone of "The Port of Bar", which further confirmed its determination to persist in its fight against organized crime.

- The Ulcinj Salina and Port of Budva were returned to state ownership.

- Olive groves and land in Valdanos were returned to the citizens of Montenegro. The Nature Park "Platamuni" was proclaimed the first marine protected area in Montenegro, while the "Katič" region also received the status of a nature park and protected area of national importance.

- The government has terminated 12 concession agreements for the construction of small hydropower plants so far, and stopped allocation of new concessions, except in one case where the concession was awarded to the Montenegrin Electric Enterprise (EPCG), as it was established that there would be no adverse environmental impacts.

- Thanks to the efficient work of the Government, in the context of timely procurement of vaccines and fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, 45.4 percent of adult citizens in Montenegro have been vaccinated since May.

- Owing to its hard and dedicated work, in just ten months this Government received support, compliments and congratulations from some of the most important European addresses. For example, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a conversation we had in Tirana, identified Montenegro as the most advanced country - candidate for membership in the European Union. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, who hosted me warmly in London, expressed strong support to our Government in the fight against organized crime. The French President Emmanuel Macron sent to me a special letter, expressing support to our European perspective and announcing implementation of a project of the French Development Agency (ADF) worth €50 million, intended to support the financing of small and medium enterprises and municipalities.   

- The government has prepared proposals for numerous laws that will enable further reforms and improve the legal system.

Hence, from all the above, it is more than obvious that the expert Government has achieved extraordinary results in less than ten months. We are aware that it can always be better. That is why its doors remain open for all well-meaning, honest, hard-working and professional people, who are ready to contribute to the active fight against crime and corruption, raising the national economy and living standard of all citizens, and to our European agenda and defined foreign policy course.

Montenegro deserves to be the best place under the sun. We are working to achieve it.