An incredible story of legal chaos concerning the shipwreck that is preventing the development of the coast near Pula, Croatia.
The wooden boat Moira remains sunk near the waterfront of Island of St. Catherine in Pula where Končar company is preparing to build the new marina. Due to the ship, which is underwater for two years now, Končar cannot enter this state-owned area over which it was granted a concession, nor build the marina, whose construction was due to start this summer season, for it to be completed by summer 2018, reports Jutarnji.hr, on August 17, 2017.
Pavle Orešnik from Pula, whose family ran a company that owned the sunken ship, claims that this legal complication is not the fault of the former owners (of Tigar i Lav company), but liquidators (bankruptcy trustees) who came one after another after the company went bankrupt.
Attempt of agreement
“If you ask us, we would have taken that ship out of the sea a long time ago. After all, we offered to do it, but then the bankruptcy trustee would come saying that it is not within our jurisdiction to do it,” says Orešnik, who claims that he has contacted the representatives of Končar’s project after the media has published a story about how his former sunken ship halts investment of EUR 60 million (about 450 million kunas) in Pula.
“Well, that ship can be taken out of the sea in two days, and this issue can be resolved without a problem. After all, Uljanik, which has the needed cranes, is just across the bay. But nothing can be done because of the bankruptcy manager. He and the bankruptcy manager before him are the ones to blame for this current situation because they did not care about that ship. The ship is not like a car which you can leave in the garage for three years without taking care of it. As soon as the ship sank, the Harbour Master ordered it to be taken out of the sea, but they did not do so. So much about how responsible they are,” says Orešnik, who is upset about the whole situation regarding the sunken Moira, which, in his opinion, was worth 30,000 euros when the company went bankrupt. The debt for which the company went into bankruptcy, Orešković claims, was about 12,000 euros.
“If the bankruptcy managers had been conscientious, they would not have allowed this to happen. We took care of the ship by emptying out the water on our own until the storm came and had sunk the whole ship. They were not even close by. If they had sold it, they would have repaid all the debts and everything would be settled. I do not know if that ship was ever offered for sale by the first bankruptcy manager. I know it was offered only when it had already sunk,” Orešnik says.
Valuable parts
He points out that even now, while submerged, the ship still has valuable parts, but it is very unlikely that any of it will be saved, or even manage to pay off the debts.
“Now the once valuable ship has ‘disappeared’ and we do not know what to do. The boat in this state is not worth much because it was under water for too long. All this happened due to gross negligence and recklessness,” emphasizes Orešnik.
Everyone is waiting for the government to jump in
On the other hand, the current bankruptcy trustee, Ivor Pliskovac, told the Jutarnji team of reporters that the bankruptcy first needs to be completed, after which the government will remove the controversial ship out of the water.This will be done soon, supposedly. Then Končar will be able to enter the islet of Catherine and begin construction work. As Barbara Peruško, who runs this million euros worth project has told us, the deadlines have been postponed until the beginning of September.
Translated from Jutarnji.hr
