Belgrade Waterfront: 100 Million Euro Debt Unanswered

The debt of the company Beograd na vodi (Belgrade Waterfront) to the City of Belgrade stands at around 100 million euros, according to the State Audit Institution, yet whether that debt has ever been settled remains unanswered. The City of Belgrade never handed over the figure, even after the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance issued a ruling ordering it to do so, according to the Anti-Corruption Council in its Report on the Lack of Transparency in the Work of State Institutions, reported on August 6, 2026.

The Council is a body of the Government of Serbia that has spent more than two decades repeating that its recommendations go unanswered. This report ties that assessment to a specific case: the largest construction project in the country, one on which even the institution the Government itself created cannot obtain basic financial data.

What the Council Could Not Determine

The list of unknowns is short and uncomfortable, since it covers items that in any other business deal would be on the first page of the contract:

• who the real investor in the Belgrade Waterfront project is
• how the ownership percentage in the project was determined
• how much the investor owes the City of Belgrade and the Republic of Serbia
• how much the Republic is indebted in proportion to its stake, and what revenue it has earned on that basis

The capital split itself is known: 68 percent is private capital, 32 percent belongs to the Republic of Serbia. How that division was reached does not appear in the documentation the Council received.

Who Is the Investor Paying for the Work?

The only document available to the public is the Joint Investment Agreement, and the Council says it lacks the basic elements of a construction contract.

“When a joint investment agreement is signed for the construction of buildings and infrastructure, it must above all contain the basic elements of a construction contract, meaning it must regulate the venture being jointly financed, what is being built, what the price of the work is, who is contributing what, and within what period each building individually, as well as the planned infrastructure and public areas, will be completed. This contract lacks those elements, above all who the investor is that pays the price of the works and the other construction costs, as well as who the contractors are,” the Council’s report states.

The agreement names Belgrade Waterfront Capital Investment LLC of Abu Dhabi as the strategic partner, with Mohamed Alabar as its legal representative. Al Maabar International Investment LLC, also of Abu Dhabi, is listed as the guarantor, with the same representative. The security behind the deal and the obligations arising from it thus rest with the same man, a detail any due diligence process would flag as a question to raise before signing, not after.

Six Years of the Same Silence

The Council first sought the same data back in 2019, publishing a separate report that year on the lack of transparency in the deal. It asked the City of Belgrade for the agreement regulating mutual obligations between the City and the Republic, and no answer came even after the Commissioner issued a ruling. It asked the Directorate for Construction Land and Construction of the City of Belgrade for the costs of land development, site clearing, environmental remediation, and expropriation. The Ministry of Environmental Protection, asked about the remediation, replied that it did not have the requested documentation.

Six years later, the same questions remain exactly where they were, while in the meantime the State Audit Institution has established the size of the debt. Mayor Aleksandar Sapic has not changed the practice of his predecessors, the Council finds, calling it a violation of the law and an erosion of institutions.

A Disparity Left Unmeasured

Serbia’s obligations under the agreement are listed: ceding the land, environmental remediation, building municipal and traffic infrastructure, and covering expropriation costs. None of them is expressed in monetary terms. The foreign partner’s obligations remain undefined and likewise unvalued, leading the Council to conclude that the two sides of the agreement carry a disproportionate burden.

“That ownership ratio was established in a completely non-transparent manner, which raises serious doubt that this is not a matter of the state’s national interest, but potentially a highly corrupt deal,” the Council states.

The Commissioner’s rulings in this case have produced no consequence, so the roughly 100 million euro figure rests on the audit’s finding alone, with no confirmation of whether or when it was ever collected. The next piece of information that could fill that gap is the answer from the City of Belgrade, the same one the Council has been requesting since 2019.