Serbia's Fin Min: State doesn't want SBB operator to dominate country's market

N1/arhiva

Sinisa Mali, Serbia's Finance Minister, said on Tuesday that the state didn't want the SBB cable operator to dominate the market over Telekom Srbija and that the state-owned provider should not make its contracts with other companies public declaring them business secrets, N1 reported.

Mali thus joined Prime Minister Ana Brnabic and the Telekom Srbija management in defending the company in a dispute with the United Media which SBB is a part of.

He added his Ministry did not audit Telekom. „Why should it? Is there any indication that something wrong is happening at Telekom? The fact that they are fighting against N1 and SBB?“

To an N1 reporter’s comment that there was no justification for spending taxpayers’ money, Mali said there were a budget and the supervisory board responsible for that company business.

„Do you know about anything that has been done contrary to the law? I cannot comment what is contrary to the business interests of (Serbia’s opposition leader Dragan) Djilas and (United Media founder and Chairman of Advisory Board, Dragan) Solak, and other tycoons, the owners of your television.“

When asked what was a problem for Telekom to show the contracts about how the taxpayers’ money was spent, Mali said „that is explained in the budget… while individual deals are business secrets.“

The United Group demanded that Telekom present its contracts with other operators which, the Group said, it had paid dozens of million Euros for distribution.

„I know that your mentors and owners would like to see those business contracts and use them to secure the SBB dominance over Telekom. We don’t want that. The state’s view is that Telekom should be positioned in the right way; that it should lead its business policy according to its interest; doesn’t retreat in front of anyone and fight for every subscriber and its profit. That profit goes into the budget of the Republic of Serbia which people benefit from, and not from the private firms’ profit. Of course, in a competitive race,“ Mali Said.

However, when parts of the United Media contracts were shown, they were not treated as a business secret.

Besides, Serbia’s Prime Minister Ana Brnbaic accused N1 of spreading fake news and supported Telekom’s idea to distribute N1 free of charge until the dispute was resolved.

At the same time, Supernova provider, a part of Telekom, demands from people who what to cancel the contract with it to pay penalties which stands against the Law on Protection of Consumers.

The United Group ended negotiations with Telekom about distributing its programmes after the previous contract expired on January 17, and published its offer to all cable operators for airing N1 for 0.4 Euros per subscriber.

Telekom described the offer as ‘racketeering’ and offered to be allowed to air it for free.