Announced the Information on the Owners of Oil Industry of the Republic of Srpska
Banja Luka, 4th July 2014 – The last session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Republic of Srpska
actualized the controversial privatization of the Oil Industry of the Republic of Srpska and the identity of
the individuals that have an ownership stake in the Oil Refinery “Brod”. Transparency International BiH
reminds that in 2007 and 2008 it warned on the lack of transparency and harmfulness of privatization of
the Oil Industry.
In 2007, TI BiH requested from the Government of the RS to disclose the names of owners of three
companies whose 60% of ownership stake is in possession of a buyer of a Russian company
NefteGazInKor- Invest Technology, Nepat and Unique Development, which were registered recently
before the privatization process. TI BiH and public have never received this information, which creates
space for doubts that the majority owners of the Refinery are not the Russian companies or the Russian
Federation, as it was presented in public, but that they are in the highest level of the Government of the
RS that conducted the process of criminal privatization or individuals closely associated with the regime.
Six years ago, TI BiH identified 44 disputable clauses of the contract of privatization of the Oil Industry
and found that the Government of the RS bought back the Refinery’s previous debts, settled court
liabilities of the company, underestimated the real value of the company, and entered in the credit
obligations provided by the NefteGazInKor in a non-transparent way. Thereby, the Government of the
RS had initially damaged the budget and redirected over a billion KM of taxpayers’ money to the private
accounts of unknown people. On the other hand, the former refinery operational profit amounted to
less than 500 million KM, bringing the entire property of the Oil Industry of the RS into the hands of the
same unknown buyers, who, in this way, managed to get the whole industry in their ownership with all
the privileges and preferential treatment that has since been effective.
The claims of TI BiH about continuous money laundering have been confirmed in the report of the audit
firm “Deloitte” for 2013, which has shown that the accumulated loss of the Refinery is bigger than 500
million KM, and that the debt is two times bigger than the profit of the company.
Privatization of the Oil Industry through direct negotiations, management of the Refinery, and the
privileges that the Government of the RS gave to the buyers and the Refinery itself, as well as the facts
that the information on the owners of firms in majority ownership in NefteGazInKor has been kept as
secret for years, lead to a conclusion that the main goal of the privatization was enrichment of the
individuals from the shadow who robbed one of the largest companies in BiH. From 2007 and on, TI BiH
has urged the Government of the RS to disclose the information on the owners of the Oil Industry in the
RS without further delays.