By: Sara Rančigaj / Nova24tv
For many years, the current “new face” of Slovenian politics, Robert Golob, built his career in the field of selling electricity. Among other things, he also expanded the sale of electricity to his family circle, as his wife is the owner and director of the company Star Solar, which deals with the production of electricity. The company is doing well, and since 2014, it has concluded deals worth 1.8 million euros with the electricity market operator Borzen. According to Borzen, they have a contract to provide support in the form of operational support for electricity. And due to the fabulous salary in Gen-I and the good business of the Star Solar company, the Golob couple can afford a luxurious villa that most Slovenians can only dream of.
It appears that the sale of electricity is Robert Golob‘s family business. His wife Janja Nemec Golob is the owner of the company Star Solar, which, according to publicly available data, is engaged in the production of electricity. The company was founded in 2012, and it operates with a profit, which has been slightly lower in recent years due to operating expenses resulting from the costs of materials and services.
Despite browsing on the internet, we did not find a website of the company where one could find out more about the company itself, for example, the answer to the question of how they even produce electricity. Judging by the company’s name, we assume that the production is based on solar cells, but we can neither confirm nor deny this, as there is no publicly available data on this topic.
Given that Golob was the President of the Management Board of the Gen-I company since 2002, we were interested in whether Star Solar works with Gen-I. That is why we sent a press question to Gen-I, asking them about it. And thanks to publicly available data, we had already found out that the Star Solar company sells electricity to the electricity market operator Borzen.
We assumed that Borzen had bought 1.8 million euros of electricity from the Star Solar company since 2014, but Borzen says that they have a contract to provide support in the form of operational support for electricity. “The Star Solar d.o.o. company has a contract with Borzen to provide support in the form of operational support for electricity produced from renewable energy sources for three photovoltaic power plants. The company Star Solar does not sell electricity to Borzen, and we also do not have any information about who the company has a marketing contract for the sale of electricity with,” Borzen told us.
Borzen also works with the Gen energija company, the mother company of Gen-I
Borzen is a public company engaged in ensuring and enabling the coordinated operation of the Slovenian electricity system. As a market operator, they also enable active market operations for all participants in the electricity market. They cooperate with most electricity providers, including the company Gen energija (Gen energy). In the last six years, Gen energija has paid about 1.5 million euros to Borzen, and Borzen has paid around 114 thousand euros to Gen energija.
Golob’s wife was also the owner of the company Star Marketing, which was founded in 2007. According to the journalist Požar, Golob supposedly paid his wife’s company to prepare marketing campaigns for the Gen-I company. We also checked the data ourselves, but according to the data presented on Erar, the web application for the portrayal of public money use in the Republic of Slovenia, the aforementioned company did not cooperate with Gen-I, and Gen-I did not transfer any financial resources to this company. Star Marketing closed its doors in July 2019.
The Golob couple had another company registered at the same address (Delpinova Street 18 in Nova Gorica), namely, Hiša otrok sonček (House of Children Sunshine), which offered daycare for children. They founded the company in October 2010, and in April 2016, it was deleted from the business register.
The Golob couple live in a luxurious villa
In 2016, the magazine Reporter reported that the Golob couple lives in a luxurious villa in the hamlet of Pod Škabrijelom above Nova Gorica, the worth of which was estimated by the Surveying and Mapping Authority to be only 189 thousand euros, with a 3,393 square meter plot worth only 22 thousand euros, and the villa worth 167 thousand euros. Golob’s villa has 201 square meters of usable space and a total of 311 square meters. The former head of the Gen-I company had no problem affording the villa due to his high income, as according to the Siol web portal, Golob supposedly received a net salary of 18,000 euros a month in 2020, and according to the magazine Reporter, his earnings were no lower in previous years.