Valuable machinery from several closed industrial companies in northern Montenegro is suspected of having been sold as scrap and taken out of the country during privatisations and bankruptcies, but the people responsible and any common sales model remain unidentified. Former workers, engineers and businesspeople have described equipment disappearing from factories, while the route it took and how it was valued have not been fully established.
The assets included production lines, specialised machines, tools, presses, rollers, electric motors and other equipment. Some had been acquired over decades, while individual machines were described as unique or very rare in the former Yugoslavia. Their removal meant that equipment potentially used for production was no longer available at the sites.
Berane’s former industrial plants included a paper factory, leather producer Polimka, a tyre retreading factory and an Obod plant that made capacitors for refrigerators and freezers. Former workers and businesspeople testified that equipment disappeared from those companies and other enterprises in the town.
Former workers estimated that equipment at the former Polimka factory was worth several million euros. Workers and engineers familiar with Berane’s paper factory said large paper machines, assembled from numerous components, were dismantled down to the last screw, loaded for export and then reassembled abroad.
Former workers had also said that machinery and equipment from Obod’s Berane plant was taken away as old iron after the factory closed. The Obod plant in Plav met a similar fate, according to the accounts. The available information does not establish where the equipment from either site ended up.
Asset decisions remain unclear
The reported losses were not confined to Berane and Plav. Bijelo Polje lost Vunko, once a large wool-processing combine, as well as other industrial companies. Termovent, Soko Štark, Mermer and other businesses closed in Andrijevica, while former industrial capacity was shut down in Rožaje and production facilities and equipment from companies disappeared in Kolašin.
The closure of production may in some cases have been driven by economic reasons, but that does not in itself establish that all equipment should have been destroyed or sold as secondary raw material. The available accounts do not detail the decisions for each company, the sale prices or the condition assessments used to dispose of the machinery.
Who authorised the disposals remains a central question, along with who assessed the equipment’s value and technical condition. It is also unclear what findings could have led a production machine to be classified as worthless or nearly worthless waste. Specific people responsible in the cases described have not been identified.
Depending on a company’s status, control over its assets and decisions to dispose of them could have rested with owners, management, boards of directors, bankruptcy administrators or other authorised people. The available information does not establish which of those parties made decisions in particular cases, or whether any common procedure was followed across the companies.
The sale and export of machinery could also have required buyers, intermediaries, dismantling firms, scrap-metal traders, transport companies and public bodies checking documents and goods at the border. No specific companies or officials involved in those roles have been named. If valuable production machines were sold at scrap prices and taken out of the country as part of an organised scheme, responsibility would not rest with only one person.
Production capacity and investigation questions
The closures and removal of equipment left losses that extended beyond the machinery itself: production capacity, jobs, know-how and markets were also lost, along with opportunities to restart manufacturing. Many former industrial companies left behind empty halls and land intended for other uses.
Whether there was an organised scheme or a single model for selling machinery from northern Montenegro’s closed factories remains unresolved. The open institutional question is how company production assets were valued, sold and taken out of the country. A full account of where the machines ended up and who was responsible has yet to emerge.
