photo: marija janković"If I say now what everyone knows - that people who are incompetent came from the manager to the top, is that a political story? Yes, but I am not telling it as a political story, but as someone who loves 'Kolubara'. When all this happened in Obrenovac, I sat down and cried, and wondered if this was possible, what all incompetent people could do? They are talking now about diversions. Well, this is an ambush suicide. Against whom was the diversion made? Against yourself? Why?”
"Stalin said that, but personnel really solve everything", says Slobodan Đerić, general director of the Kolubara Mining Basin (RB) in the period from the fall of 2001 to 2004, in an interview for "Vreme", commenting on the accident that occurred at the Obrenovac Thermal Power Plant "Nikola Tesla" (TENT) a few days ago.
Đerić has a degree in economics, he graduated from the faculty in Sarajevo at the age of 22.
He came to Kolubar from Sarajevo's UNIS through a competition in 1992.
"I am a statistical error, a living example that in companies in the public sector, a manager can be a non-partisan person," says Đerić. "After October 5, 2000, when revolutionaries tried to occupy all positions, Zoran Đinđić appeared with the idea that it cannot be allowed to revolutionaries those who are in the parties also take those positions where expertise is needed.
Here in Kolubara, as a non-party person, I gathered experts, the rest were old engineers from the previous period, although I had huge criticism from all the parties that made up the DOS at that time. The DSS attacked me the most because they thought I was 'yellow' because I was supported directly by Đinđić. I also had a permanent link with the ministry, because it was a very crisis situation at that time.
When DS and DSS parted ways in 2001, DSS was here at the bar, carried away by the euphoria that 'Kolubara' had announced October 5, and gave the slogan that in 2000 the 'red mafia' was overthrown, and that in 2001 they would overthrow the 'yellow'. mafia, because DS got those public companies. There was an intention to organize a celebration on October 5, 2001 with a work stoppage, so that Kolubara would be demolished by the "yellows" this time. I was the financial director at the time, but I didn't accept it, and then I was chosen by chance among 20 people organized by the ministry as the general director of 'Kolubara' at the end of 2001, because the government then ordered to find 12 competent people to take over 'Kolubara', but to prevent a revolutionary coup from happening again.
In three and a half years, we have achieved phenomenal results. In the fall of 2000, 'Kolubara' was in a situation where, after ten years of the Serbian blockade, sanctions, bombings and two or three "industrial revolutions", production was maintained thanks to engineers, craftsmen, workers, knowledge and improvisations.
It was insisted that we spend the winter that first winter because there was no coal discovered, and there was no coal in the landfills either. All assumptions were that we would not be able to achieve sufficient coal production that winter for TENT's capacities to work. However, we succeeded, everyone congratulated us, and then in 2001 and the following three years we developed production, invested in capacities."
"WEATHER" You said that the situation in Kolubara is 5. October 2000. was very bad. Was it just because of the sanctions?, bombing, or because of a bad choice of personnel?
SLOBODAN ĐERIĆ: Because of sanctions and bombings, yes, but the SPS leadership at the time were good, professional staff, I have to admit that. The party controlled it, normally, there were cases where a party member was a pro forma director, but real experts, real engineers did the work.
How did it look after 5. October?
What changed was that many non-professionals tried to get into the leadership structures, and the parties supported this. And all that culminated and experienced a complete fiasco with this, the latest government, when in 2012 Milorad Grcic obtained a diploma in April, somewhere in Mitrovica at some faculty where diplomas are bought, he can now sue me for this. And he was appointed director in October!
That was a shock for us, even though the previous management, I think they were from DSS and DS, and, it must be admitted, worked frivolously and "Kolubara" was in a very bad state. So it was asked again, partly because of party games, partly because something must be done, something must be changed. But here's what they are and how they did it.
I have to say that Aleksandar Vučić did it directly then. I have information that now, of course, no one will confirm, not even the minister at the time, that when the ministry tried, as in 2001, to find a team to take over the management of "Kolubar", the "Chief" said: "It will be Mića, we have to let's pay off".
We didn't even know who Mica was. Usually, there was always some animosity in "Kolubara" if personnel from EPS (Belgrade) were appointed instead of personnel from "Kolubara" ("from the local"). I was the director because I am from "Kolubara" (among other things). It was still a rough situation after October 5. Both the ministry and the parties thought that some experienced engineers from EPS should be appointed, but then the prevailing opinion was that it must be a man from "Kolubara". But, it was always about experienced personnel, both from "Kolubara" and from EPS.
How do you comment on the accident that happened in TENT in a few days ago?
Clay, dirty coal, snow, these are all excuses. It is normal that now, when it snowed, a crooked wooden flag fell that was only held by conductors. And then they say that's it vis major. And then it's like, vis major and poor coal quality and the like. No, it is purely a human factor.
What does the flow of coal look like from mining to the moment it is used in TENT u?
There are experienced excavators on the bed itself, they have a way to throw aside or skip any layers with the help of others. It is normal that it happens that when the rotary excavator grabs coal from the deposit, it also grabs something else, in recent years the coal has been of poorer quality because "Kolubara" dug where it was easiest, where the overburden was less, that means, less tailings had to be dug up in order to came to coal. Over the years, we have come to a situation where it is increasingly difficult. Then what is excavated with belts goes to the crushing plant, from there to wagons and to the landfill. Now they say: "Compositions full of clay have arrived", so that is the cause of the accident. That is impossible.
A system for automatic quality management was ordered in "Kolubara" ten years ago. I worked in development then, it was part of some green agenda, but they say it hasn't taken off yet. However, even before that, it was always the case at "Kolubara" that we homogenized and mixed that coal. Engineers know - if the coal is of poor quality, we always had to achieve the required calorific value of coal for which the power plant was designed, high-quality batches of coal were added.
Secondly, there was a joint commission of TENT and "Kolubara", which worked constantly. So, flow scales, the coal is measured, the scale and our accredited laboratory check the quality by taking samples. There were always discussions between the members of the commission from TENT and "Kolubara" "it is of good quality, it is not of good quality, there was soil, clay", etc., and that is a normal thing. But there is a dump there in TENT, where there are dump machines. Coal is also mixed in some way during the excavation itself, during crushing, pulverization, and again at the landfill. If those trains flowed to the burners, it means that there is no coal in the landfills. And if there is no coal in the landfills for at least 15 days, at least a million tons, then we are really in trouble.
If due to carelessness, everything is possible, they sent trains full of clay from "Kolubara", and if they directly put the cargo from those trains into the burners, they did not refine it with fuel oil, then it is really a tragedy. But that is the human factor. And they say: "It happened". Now, like, there are some investigations going on, it's ridiculous to me, out of mind.
photo: marija janković
Common sense, until now it has been snowing and it has been winter. While I was the manager of "Kolubara", we had one month in which the maltenes were icy all day, the temperature did not exceed zero for more than 20 days. This is the biggest problem for the removal of coal, both for TENT and for "Kolubara". The wagons freeze, so you can't unload them because you bring a lump of ice, frozen coal. And people overcame all that and did not cause any damage.
What does the planning process itself look like?, until when a field is exploited and when it is planned to open a new one?
The deposits were geologically explored and all the pits were "contoured", which had long been examined and planned. From field A in the 1960s, then the other fields, and the Juzno field, and on the west side the Tamnava west field, the Tamnava east field and more recently the small mine that has already been completed, Crljeni. In those plans, you have a geologically explored deposit, you have all the quantities of coal that can be exploited.
According to those maps, it was always planned in advance and it was known exactly, or at least tentatively in the development strategies adopted in five, ten years, when which mine would be opened and when which mine would finish exploitation, considering the planned amount of coal that must be excavated to meet the needs of the power plant.
So, for example, for years the largest mine was field B, it was known that its working life was supposed to be until 2016. Since the exploitation was going fast, it was known that the exploitation would be completed by 2011. For the Tamnava western field, we acquired a new system with a loan, increased its capacity by double and it is now the main mine, it produces more than half of the coal from "Kolubara".
But what happened? The conceptual project existed in 2003–2004. year for field E, I am talking about the eastern part of Kolubara, it was called "replacement capacity for field D". So, you have the biggest mine, it will be replaced by the next mine, which will be the same as that one in terms of the amount of possible mined coal, and then you don't have a problem.
That mine was supposed to start from the east side. I twice attended the session of the expert council of EPS, which, in addition to people from EPS, consisted of people from science, from the faculty, and I listened to their discussions about how that mine is relatively inconvenient for exploitation because the coal deposits one way or another, there layers and the like, but it was on the threshold of starting the development of the main construction project. This is all done at the level of EPS a, the ministry, the Faculty of Mining and Geology. By the time you prepare it, by the time you uncover the overburden, the mine needs time to start working. The plan was to start mining the overburden in 2007, and to get to the coal in 2011, and that's when field D will finish mining.
However, that was abandoned because after 2004, I think at that time, DSS cadres returned again, because the residents of Vreoc did not allow the cemetery to be dug up. As mine D progresses, it was only necessary to excavate a cemetery on the hill above Vreoc, there are large quantities of coal, then field D ends the story, and it reaches all the industrial plants of "Kolubara", there is also a railway and a road to Belgrade . That will not be dug, and Lazarevac is on coal, so it will not be dug.
Then a big political story arose and they decided to evict the entire Vreoc. That is the only good thing that happened because the population was evicted from those inhumane living conditions with relatively good compensation. I also think that Vreoci should definitely move out, but it should have been done gradually, over a longer period of time.
In the period from 2004 until today, as my friends say, there is a corner. So, it was not transferred to field E as a replacement capacity of field D. We had an active mine field D and field B, which is small, from which it is transferred to field C, which is also small, from which via field C it is transferred to field E. The road to Arandjelovac, the Pestan river should have been moved there, that is, some retentions should have been made, etc. They didn't do any of that, but dug in those corners for some projects, which they still do today.
On the Kolubara website, you can see that for field B they say B/D. They even mention field E, they say C/E. When you look on the map, or live, there is no mined coal.
It was always planned, it was done years in advance so that coal had to be discovered, tailings removed, at least in half a year, three months, let's say for one winter you have the tailings unearthed and then you have a reserve of quality coal. In addition, you have a reserve of 15-20 days in landfills. This was done synchronously with the overhauls in TENT in Kolubari.
It is very strange that there was an overhaul of the TENT now and that it was extended almost into winter, when it is not the time, and there is no coal in the landfills. How is it possible that there is no coal in the landfills, if the cargo from the trains was "directly thrown" into the burners?
Can the situation be improved and how??
I asked people, there is no exact data, but they say that there is no mined coal. That's why I'm a big pessimist. I only have a little bit of optimism because I heard that a man I know, a good engineer, Milan Petrović, was appointed instead of one of the dismissed directors of Kolubara. Now, will they allow him to form a team, and he needs at least 50 people, "Kolubara" is big...
The tragedy is that people say that the management staff, from the director to the foreman, is completely covered by industrial management engineers and the like, with degrees acquired here and there. Whether they will be able to clear it up, I don't know. "Kolubara" was kept all this time by engineers, masters, workers who mastered the technology, no matter how outdated it is, and because people are, so to speak, patriots. They know their job, they do their job, and it was lucky that some people who came for management positions did not interfere in their work. Where they interfered, there was always a problem.
I live in Lazarevac, I meet people every day, and for five, sixty, ten years they have been saying "it can't be like this anymore", but until now it was still possible. But I'm afraid we've hit a wall now. Again, when I think about the kind of "Kolubara" we took over in October 2000, I feel a certain optimism. Although, I am free to claim that "Kolubara" is in a worse condition now than it was then, and twenty years have passed.
What else influenced it in the past years "Kolubara" devastated?
In addition to the fact that coal mining in field E, the replacement capacity for field D, was not started on time, the biggest mine, Zapadno polje, flooded in 2014. I was working in development at the time, my director, an old engineer who held various management positions, said already in 2012, 2013: "They are not protecting the mine from Kolubara". There, the bed of the Kolubara river was moved, it was moved five to six kilometers, a second stream was made in order to mine coal at the then Tamnava East Field mine. And since the coal was mined, the Kolubara flowed to the mine itself at a significantly higher height than the level of the excavated soil, the river "hit the mine" and "hung" over it. And it is normal for the water to tend to return downwards, to the old bed. There was a protection project, to make the so-called cassette, to divert the Kolubara River in time, but this was not done.
But an even bigger crime was committed there, I don't know how else to call it. Gro machine could be pulled out of the pit before the flood. Ordinary trucks were not driven out of the pit, and a crawler excavator could also walk, I'm talking about a large excavator. However, they did not do this. A flood occurs, a natural disaster, but nothing was done against it, and then we see the scene - incompletely pumped water into the mine, and the Government is holding a session in the mine, they put some gangs in the mud. And they brag about how they pumped out the water the fastest in the world.
One tidbit: in 2014, an engineer was given the task of quickly creating a power supply network for those huge pumps that will come from the Netherlands and pump out the water. The engineer says: "Wait, it's deposited overburden, it's not a stable ground to put poles on", but he still did it day and night, and then, halfway through the story, the oil pumps came. There is so much dilettantism at various levels in "Kolubara", it is simply not allowed.
How do you assess the reaction of the Government and the Ministry in the situation that happened in TENT u?
I kept thinking that I should not tell a political story, but a purely original, professional story. But this is all turning into politics. If I say now what everyone knows - that incompetent people came from the manager to the top, is that a political story? Yes, but I am not telling it as a political story, but as someone who loves "Kolubara". When all this happened in Obrenovac, I sat down and cried, and wondered if this was possible, what all incompetent people could do? They are talking now about diversions. Well, this is an ambush suicide. Against whom was the diversion made? Against yourself? Why?
Siniša Mali came out and said, paraphrasing, "there is no problem with electricity being imported, EPS will cover it from its accumulation and current inflow, it doesn't cost the state anything". Is it possible to say such a thing? And competent people say that one power plant will be consumed by importing expensive electricity this winter.
All the possible profit that EPS has to make mostly disappears somewhere, and it is not invested in capacity renewal, modernization of the production process. If what happened isn't enough of a warning, I don't know what is.
My colleague and I were the initiators of the Inquiry Committee in 2004, because it happened that at that time someone, at the level of the EPS or the ministry, I don't know, contracted the import of electricity for that winter, normally at high prices, as now imports expensive electricity. Then we, at the Board of Directors, which I attended as the director of "Kolubara", heard that an agreement had been made to import electricity because there is no coal at the landfills in Obrenovac. They asked for my shift. I said that it was normal that I was responsible for it and offered to resign if there was no coal in the landfills, but I claimed that there was and that there was enough uncovered coal to be deposited all winter.
It could not be resolved at the Supervisory Board, and I received information from some good people from TENT that reports were falsified for a month and a half. For example, today we send 80.000 tons of coal to Obrenovac, they write 8000. Someone deliberately falsified the reports in order to import electricity.
Since the Board of Directors could not solve it, an independent institution, I mean the Geodetic Institute, was taken to measure how much coal there is in the landfills. And their report came to the Supervisory Board that there is more coal in TENT A and B landfills than the designed capacity of the landfills. And again, the Supervisory Board does not make any decision, nor to punish those who falsified official reports and records.
I didn't know what else to do, so I turned to the government with my deputy. An Inquiry Committee was formed in the Assembly, whose president was Aleksandar Vučić, then in the opposition, Zorana Mihajlović and some other people were also there. They questioned us all for days, but nothing happened. I remember that at the end, in the Assembly, in a small hall, Aleksandar Vučić came up to me, we talked. I say to him: "Young man, collect huge political points, the whole of Serbia is watching what your political opponents are doing." And my head is in the bag." I had problems then, not only with the import of electricity, but also with the sale of coal to private individuals. Vučić says: "Don't be afraid of anything, here's my phone number, just call me, and I'll put them in jail, because as a citizen, if nothing happens, I'll file a criminal complaint."
Normally, that didn't happen, not even because electricity was imported, nothing. It always ends that way, nothing will happen now either.
When you mention the sale of coal to private individuals, Insider also dealt with that?
We initiated it, that "Insider", in order to protect us from the public, because I was then threatened with murder. They threatened me with messages saying "we know where your child goes to school", set up traffic jams, tapped my phone, and once offered me a police escort, which I did not accept.
When I was appointed director of "Kolubara", I noticed that coal had a low price. If, for example, in Vreoci it is ten marks, in Belgrade it is one hundred, in Vojvodina 150. Because "Kolubara" is not solvent, it is not financially powerful, a million tons of coal are sold in advance to a private person because he pays in advance and "Kolubara" gets fresh money. I stopped it, even since we have "Kolubara promet" as an integral part of "Kolubara", we did both wholesale and retail sale of coal. We opened a coal storage facility in Belgrade and transported it there by trains, so "Kolubara" sold Kolubara coal that way.
There were many people involved in that coal business, from Dragan Marković Palma onwards, a large number of big and small 'players'. I don't know who was behind the scenes, but many people made a living from it. Demonstrations were held in Lazarevac, for example, by various associations of private carriers. There were also victims, a man bought a truck to live on and now it turns out that Đerić won't give him coal. But there were large trades, people who opened warehouses in Niš, Novi Sad, Subotica, refine the coal and sell it at a higher price. Those were huge earnings.
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