The Anti – Corruption Council has conducted a report on Highway Horgos – Pozega concession on September 4th, and delivered it to the Serbian government. The Council has continued to analyze concession’s assignation for highway construction and the Council has several times asked from the government to deliver the Contract including all the annexes, but the government thinking was that the Council didn’t have to be informed on all the elements of the Concession Contract. 

 The Council has discussed the Contract including the annexes downloaded from the official web site of the government, stressing that the government did not post all the annexes, which made it impossible to ascertain all the rights and obligations of the concession parties (the grantor and the concessionaire). Due to such position of the government, there are some simplified opinions in public regarding the reasons and responsibility for the cancellation of the Concession Contract. 
 
As the Contract on concession is of such kind where both sides have their rights and obligations, all the rights and obligations pursuant to the Contract on concession and the additional annexes need to be disclosed in order to discuss the cancellation of the Contract and its consequences. 

It is an obligation of the government (not of some ministries) to inform the public regarding rights and obligations taken by the Concession Contract (including the annexes), as well as regarding deadlines taken by the concessionaire for completing its obligations. 

In order to inform the public on the concession for the construction of the Horgos-Pozega highway, the government was obliged to present the facts regarding the execution of the state obligations in previously agreed deadlines, because, it is usual for concession contracts that the state, as a grantor, is obliged to fulfill some obligations before a concessionaire even starts the works. 

The government should inform the public on who is liable for contract’s cancellation, in other words who did not complete its obligations; Is it the grantor (the state) or the concessionaire (Alpina Por), because it is the key issue whether to consensually terminate the contract or not. 

The public can accept consensual contract’s termination only under condition that the state did not finish its obligations in a deadline pursuant to the Contract. In that case the state should identify those who are responsible for non - execution of the obligations laid down in the Contract on concession; In other words, someone has to be responsible for it.

The public cannot and should not accept the consensual termination of the contract if the state accomplished all its obligations and the concessionaire did not. If the concessionaire did not fulfill its obligations in the settled deadline, the state would have to terminate the contract because the concessionaire did not complete its obligations and it would be also obliged to settle the guarantee submitted by the concessionaire, as a security for a fine job execution. 

If the government omits to inform the public on above mentioned data, it can be concluded that the government, by the consensual contract’s termination, deliberately protects those responsible for contract’s failure or covers the fact that the contract isn’t good for Serbia or covers the damage for the state occurred by signing the Concession Contract. All of these data point at possible corruption, in both the former and the existing government.