Senior managers collect dividends on workers' shares

Higher managers receive dividends on shares owned by workers of Belarusian enterprises.

Many employees have had shares since 1993, but have never received dividend payments.

OJSC Slutsk Cheese Factory informed shareholders that they would not receive dividends for 2012. The factory does not seem to be on the verge of bankruptcy – the enterprise spent about $14 million on modernisation last year.

The Slutsk factory is not the only one in Belarus having problems with paying dividends. Vasily, a former employee of Ivetsevichdrev, a wood processing plant in Ivatsevichy, told Belsat TV he had not received dividends for 6 years.

”I have 35 shares. The last time I had dividends was 6-7 years ago, when Ivatsevichy hosted the national harvest festival. A new director was recently appointed. He promised to pay money. I opened a special bank account. I am waiting for August. I could buy new trousers, a shirt and other things on that money. The dividends were growing every year, but the company suddenly stopped paying them.”

Despite such examples, the amount of dividends to the state is growing. The state received Br2.9 trillion of dividends in 2012 – twice as much as in 2011, chairman of the State Property Committee Heorhy Kuzniatsou said to BelTA news agency.

Belaruskali company, all shares of which are owned by the state, paid 45% of the total sum of dividends.

According to Heorhy Kuzniatsou, only 7 per cent of enterprises (51 open joint stock companies) do not make dividend payments.

Economist Leanid Zaika says that 98% of joint stock companies in Belarus have not pay dividends since 1993.