February 17, 2011 [Baltic Business News] - Vopak E.O.S. that operates Estonia's largest oil terminal in Muuga Port submitted Thursday an appeal to Tallinn District Court to overturn a construction permit for the new Tallinna Vangla prison in Maardu. The appeal is against the decision made by Tallinn Administrative Court on 18 January 2011.
”All risk analyses confirm that the development of the prison within the safety zone of the terminal, pipeline operations and Maardu railway station will obviously interfere and limit future activities of Vopak E.O.S. Moreover, as a result of the dispute, currently a euro 25 million investment into new facilities in Maardu railway infrastructure have been blocked by actions of the ministry of justice,” commented Arnout Lugtmeijer, Chairman of the board of Vopak E.O.S.
“We are surprised that the ministry of justice continues this pointless dispute targeted against our activities in the industrial area of Maardu. With Vopak E.O.S.’s compromise offer on the table, the problem can be solved if the ministry of justice decides to stop running two prison project developments in parallel by choosing the new location in Rae municipality and abandoning Maardu,” Lugtmeijer added.
“Over the past 10 years, the employees of Vopak E.O.S. have worked very hard to become the leading terminal operator in the Baltic Sea region, creating a valuable export logistics chain together with Tallinna Sadam and Eesti Raudtee.” Lugtmeijer said. “I think the Government should seek a consensus that the prison should not be built in Maardu and to stop the situation where Estonian logistics sector suffers from the unreasonable and obstinate position taken by the ministry of justice, and as such restricts our ability to continue to provide a competitive value chain through Estonia.”
“Over the years Estonian governments have done excellent work in supporting entrepreneurship and investment climate in the country. Now we really expect the government to actually take a more active role in solving this stalemate situation whereby all parties are spending money in an empty process for already many years. At the end of the day, we will only come out of this economic downturn when government and entrepreneurs go about business hand-in-hand”.
Vopak E.O.S. has been proactive in trying to reach a mutually acceptable solution to relocate the prison development. “We have offered RKAS 1.28 million euros to cover non-transferable costs of the prison development, the same amount as was claimed by the ministry of justice to have already been spent on developing the project,” commented Lugtmeijer.
