The engagement of CESI, a consultancy specialising in the energy sector, to monitor the implementation of Phase III of the Distribution Metering System Improvement Project (AMM Project), cost CEDIS as much as EUR 499,852. The daily rates (eight working hours) of the consultants engaged to work from home and from business premises ranged from EUR 654 to EUR 897! It follows from the above that CEDIS paid around EUR 110 per hour for the Team Leader, while the hourly rates for the IT Senior (Expert I) and IT Junior (Expert II) cost the company between EUR 80 and EUR 100. Thus, the total amount invoiced for 479 working days by CESI’s experts reached EUR 400,339, while as much as EUR 95,000 was allocated for accommodation, meals, transport and other services, with approximately EUR 24,000 in outstanding liabilities remaining.
The current management’s aim is far from attempting to discredit the previous leadership for populist purposes. We therefore emphasise that the AMM Project is extremely important and brings numerous valuable benefits to Montenegro’s electricity distribution system, but the amounts stated diminish the impact of the results achieved previously. In the Montenegrin context, and also in light of CEDIS employees’ salaries—whose average monthly earnings amount to roughly the cost of a consultant’s day of work—these amounts can hardly be considered responsible business practice. We remind readers that the company’s workforce is made up of employees engaged in high-risk electrical installation work.
In the coming period, we will take all necessary steps to ensure that these activities are addressed through the appropriate institutional channels. Furthermore, one of CEDIS’s strategic priorities is to make maximum use of the company’s human resources and invest in the professional training of our staff, in order to minimise costs associated with external services.
We also remind readers that a tender was recently announced for the procurement of equipment and works for the “AMM Project – Third Phase Extension”. The procurement was divided into two lots (Electricity Meters and Execution of Works and Supply of Equipment), thereby enabling a significantly larger number of potential bidders to participate. We had previously undertaken a range of activities to encourage as many companies as possible to participate in the tender, with the aim of establishing non-discriminatory criteria and creating the conditions for “healthy” market competition.
