When the name Kostak started appearing in some media recently, many people in the Posavje region wondered why the media were making a story out of the fact that a company had stumbled upon buried rubbish in a landfill site that had been abandoned for decades. After all, this is the equivalent of construction workers finding the remains of an old settlement in the area of an old settlement. Meaning, this is nothing unpredictable or illegal.
This is also the gist of the accusations that have been heaped on Kostak from one specific source – a media outlet that belongs to the circle of Odlazek’s journalistic weapons.
What is this all about?
In recent years, the Krško public utility company Kostak has become the leading public utility company in Slovenia. With apparently good methods, it has managed to set up a system which, according to experts, is today one of the key formulas of the Slovenian solution in the waste sector. Namely, Slovenia did not set up a system capable of permanently destroying the waste it produces, as is the case in many more developed countries. We know that Vienna has been heated for decades by an incinerator burning waste from all over the Austrian capital. However, Slovenia is not in favour of such a solution. So, we are left with the removal and export of waste to other countries. We taxpayers pay for this twice: once when we pay for the waste to be processed, and the second time when we have to pay for it to be transported to other countries and incinerated in dedicated incinerators.
By increasing its capacity, the company Kostak has significantly accelerated the processing of waste from a large part of Slovenia, thus preventing the accumulation of rubbish in the largest cities. And, of course, they have increased their strength in the public utility services market. This is something that Martin Odlazek, the garbage tycoon from Dolenjska, has not been observing calmly – for quite some time now. Well-informed circles close to him say that Kostak became his target years ago and that he first approached the attempted takeover of the company just like he approaches any other. With soft pressure in holiday houses and restaurants. However, since these approaches have not borne fruit, he has now resorted to heavier artillery. Media attacks and pressure on the investigating authorities.
The main player at this stage is the web portal, which has the most misleading name on the Slovenian scene. The web portal “Necenzurirano” – Uncensored, which has constructed a story for its owner about the alleged burial of waste in a water protection area. Their allegations, which are aimed at indirectly putting pressure on the environmental inspectorate and the police, are backed up by photographs which tell nothing, except that there is rubbish in the landfill.
The Posavje people we spoke to told us a similar story. Odlazek is very bothered by the company Kostak. If he can’t get it otherwise, he will try to destroy Kostak’s President of the Management Board, Miljenko Muha, in the media and bring about his downfall.
And then there’s this: the Odlazek-dependent journalists are creating a story that is almost laughable. The landfill site where Kostak built the waste management centre was an illegal and wild waste dump for almost half a century. The fact that waste was everywhere is known from the footage that Primož Cirman and Tomaž Modic must have, but they just refuse to publish it. However, they are publishing photographs from the time when these plots were being cleared, when Kostak’s excavators were digging up and moving the rubbish in order to prepare the land for the construction of the new building.
The area was never a water protection zone, the locals say. If it had been, there would be no waste dump from the Krško nuclear power plant, which is in close proximity to the Kostak centre.
Talk of environmental danger is, therefore, off the table. The locals in Spodnji Stari Grad, a village about three kilometres from the Kostak Centre, are now living much better than they used to. Gone are the constant smells and waste that the wind used to spread even within the settlement. Kostak has reportedly listened to their suggestions. Muha, Kostak’s President of the Management Board, reportedly came running to every meeting at the call of the residents and put an end to whatever was bothering them. Thus, he listened to the voice of the people.
They are not interested in the facts
These are all facts that the Uncensored journalists are not interested in. All they are interested in now is the business goal of their owner. Unfortunately for the people of Krško, who also fear for the fate of their jobs at Kostak, the power of Odlazek’s media machine can be destructive. It will now be interesting to see how far the backs of the investigators at the National Bureau of Investigations (NPU) will bend, where an anonymous complaint about the alleged burial of rubbish in an existing landfill site was directed after the intervention of the police leadership, and how low the environmental inspectors may sink. Both jumped when the pressure from the Uncensored media began.
Our comment that it would be good for the safety of citizens in Posavje if the state were so responsive to the problem of migrants who cross the Slovenian border in large numbers every day while the security authorities look on, seems to be very relevant. But this is not part of the political agenda of the Slovenian authorities of the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje Svoboda). Their agenda is the subjugation of everything that benefits their elites.
This is the sad reality of Slovenia under the Freedom Movement.
Sara Kovač
