CROATIAN COMPANY TRANSMITTERS AND COMMUNICATIONS (OIV) IS ONLY CANDIDATE TO TAKE OVER ENTIRE PROJECT OF DIGITIZATION OF PUBLIC RADIO AND TELEVISION SERVICES IN BIH

SARAJEVO, JULY 18 (ONASA-Hina) – The Croatian company Odašiljači i veze (OiV) is the only candidate to take over the entire project of digitization of public radio and television services in Bosnia and Herzegovina, after the consortium of which they were a part fell apart due to American sanctions. who won the job worth one million euros in a public tender.
The final decision on whether OiV will continue to start the project will be made by the BiH Ministry of Transport and Communications, and local media reported on Thursday that an assessment of the training and capacity of the Croatian company is underway.
Digitization of public services in BiH has been delayed for years, and only last year was the public tender completed, in which the project worth 25.8 million convertible marks (13.1 million euros) was entrusted to a consortium consisting of Banjo Luka’s Sirius and OiV.
However, in June, Sirius was hit by sanctions from the US administration, which then decided to punish seven more companies connected to the family of Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, that is, to his son Igor.
The US Treasury explained that Dodik and his closest relatives created an intricate network of companies that had a privileged status and received lucrative deals with entity and state authorities, which in turn financed the leader of the Bosnian Serbs and his family.
One of such companies is Sirius 2010, based in Banja Luka, registered for jobs related to information technologies. In cooperation with the companies Prointer and Kaldera, they have until now supplied state and public companies with IT technology and provided technical support.
Like all other companies and persons from BiH to which the USA imposed sanctions, Sirius immediately found himself in big problems because commercial banks began to close his accounts, fearing that otherwise they themselves could be punished, i.e. kicked out of the SWIFT international payment system.
Sirius is in a special problem because it has already delivered digitization equipment and now the company is panicking about charging for that service before the last account is closed, but the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Bosnia and Herzegovina is acting extremely cautiously and considering what to do because, as have clarified, they do not want to in any way violate the regime of American sanctions, which prohibit any business with penalized companies and individuals.
Minister Edin Forto is currently in doubt as to how to continue the digitization project, and he has directly discussed this with representatives of Sirius and OiV.
“At the meeting that the minister held with the consortium immediately after learning that one of the members of the consortium was on the US sanctions list, the representatives of the OiV management pointed out that they have the capacity to independently complete the work if the other member of the consortium voluntarily steps forward, so in that case they would provide necessary guarantees for the successful execution of this work. Of course, before any final decision, the situation requires careful monitoring, prompt response, and consultation with the competent institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina due to the legal consequences that may arise in that case,” states the statement of the ministry, which is reported by “Oslobođenje”. (end)