The Centre for Investigative Reporting (CIN) presents The Deal, a documentary that examines the privatisation of Republika Srpska’s oil sector and the implementation of energy-sector concession agreements with Russian businessman Rašid Sardarov, tracing the fate of the strategic partnership between Republika Srpska and Russia.
Milorad Dodik announced the partnership with Russia in 2006, when he came to power.
The deals were presented as an agreement that would help drive the development of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) as a whole, generate revenue for the public budget, create jobs, develop the oil sector and boost electricity generation.
None of this came to pass.
Two decades on, the Brod Oil Refinery and the Modriča Oil Refinery have accumulated losses of more than one billion convertible marks. Sardarov, meanwhile, took more than BAM 300 million in public money, rather than investing the promised one billion marks.
In its new documentary, The Deal, CIN reveals what happened during the privatisation of the oil sector, how money was paid to buy out Sardarov’s unrealised projects before a contract had even been signed or the necessary funds secured in the budget, how the contracts were repeatedly amended in favour of the Russian businessman, and how the public company RiTE Ugljevik was left to foot the bill.
