Amid the general collapse of Serbia’s energy system caused by snow, the process of filling the pockets of companies favoured by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) is continuing.
Nites, a company whose executive director is Bojan Kisić, brother of Labour Minister Darija Kisić Tepavčević concluded a contract worth 211 million dinars with Electric Power Industry of Serbia (EPS) on December 20, for “expansion of the system for integrated communication at the surface mine”.
This public procurement tender was launched on October 15 this year, and the deadline for submitting bids was November 19. According to the data from the public procurement portal, Nites was the only bidder in this tender. Nites took part in the tender in a consortium with the Belgrade-based company, Novatel.
The tender concerns the purchase of base stations, user terminals, oral radio relay connections, monitoring system, plant design and system user training. The tender is divided into two segments – the first worth 93 million dinars, and the second 118 million (excluding VAT), which makes a total of 211 million dinars, or slightly over 1.75 million euros.
In just four years, Nites has managed to increase its annual profit from 27 million to as much as 375 million dinars.
The mentioned growth, coincidentally or not, coincided with the period when Bojan Kisić’s wife, Nela Kuburović and his sister, Darija Kisić-Tepavčević both held high government positions. The first was the Justice Minister, while the latter is still the Labour Minister in the Serbian government.
Nites operates under the Nites Group which does business in Serbia, the Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Russia and the United Kingdom.
“In the last few years, Nites concluded very lucrative contracts with EPS, worth 30 million euros. In the last two years, they have signed 11 contracts to that value. From 2017 to 2019 alone, Nites concluded close to EUR 30 million worth of deals with EPS,” says Borko Stefanović, Vice President of the Freedom and Justice Party (SSP).
(Nova, 24.12.2021)