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Public procurement research – Round table announcement

In 2010, Institute Alternative conducted research on public procurement system in Montenegro with regard to issues of transparency and accountability. The research was conducted in the framework of the “EU Matrix – Monitoring the process of European integration with a focus on the implementation of the National Program for the integration of Montenegro into the EU”. This project is being implemented in partnership with the Monitoring Centre and the European Movement in Montenegro, with the support of the Foundation Open Society Institute – Representative Office Montenegro.

IA organizes a round table in order to present draft version of the research report, open discussion and get helpful suggestions and comments. You can download the draft version of the research report here. (version in Montenegrin only)

The round table is not limited to the topics dealt with in the draft version and provides an opportunity for a comprehensive view of the advantages and disadvantages of the legal framework and practices in the public procurement system, as well as the opportunity to jointly discuss the possibilities of cross-sectoral cooperation in this field. This round table could be an opportunity to define additional suggestions to legislators responsible for the work on amending the Law on Public Procurement.

The event is scheduled for 18 October 2010, starting at 11:00 with intended duration until 14.30 h. Venue of the event is the conference hall of restaurant Ribnica in Podgorica.

For additional information please contact associate Milica Popovic – milica.popovic@institut-alternativa.org

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Parliamentary oversight

The process of adopting the Law on Parliamentary Oversight of the Security and Defense Sector demands the attention of MPs, international organizations, civil society and the public in general. It should not be allowed that this law becomes shares the fate of those that are hardly read,differently understood, poorly applied.

Parliamentary Committee for Defense and Security is preparing a new Law on Parliamentary Oversight of the Security and Defence Sector. Institute Alternative monitors developments in this area for a long time, having published an analysis of parliamentary oversight of the security and defense sector in 2009. Although the Law on Parliamentary Oversight of the Security and Defence Sector has been unfortunately kept in the parliamentary bureau for almost two years, it is good that the Committee has returned to this important task, intending to complete it by the end of this month.Therefore, it is time to point out to some important issues that were not addressed accordingly in the previous versions of this law.

Parliamentary oversight of the defense and security sector: What next?

 

We believe that Government Administration for Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism should be listed as one of the subjects of the parliamentary oversight. Content, nature and character of the jurisdictions, as well as experience derived from the work of the Committee shows the Administration as an unavoidable part of the security and defense system. Among other things, this is confirmed by the fact that at the 16th session of the Committee, a control hearing of the head of this body was conducted, concerning its activities in the “Šarić” case and in the “Balkan Warrior” action.

A period after which persons who performed intelligence tasks or former Ministers responsible for security and defense issues, could serve as members of the Committee should also be determined. This would ensure that the Committee is able to carry out independent monitoring in relation to those events, which have occurred in the previous period. Conflict of interest (marriage, relatives, and other relations with the executives and employees) should be identified as a disqualifying factor for membership in the Committee.

The law should resolve the dilemma that existed in the application of the provisions of the Parliament’s Rules of Procedure, Law on National Security Agency (ANB) and Police Act. One of those situations that hampered the parliamentary oversight occurred in an attempt of the Committee members to the conduct oversight of the supervision of postal items and other means of communication at ANB. The sad fact is that even such a deficient oversight was the only attempt of its kind conducted in five years. Law on ANB prescribes that Committee shall submit a report on its activities to the Parliament, at least once a year, but the public is not inform that the Committee submitted reports in the past five years. Even so, it is certain that Parliament itself has not held the session in which could discuss this report.

The Law should prescribe a stronger role of opposition MPs in the Committee. By determining that all decisions in the Committee are adopted by majority vote, especially when electing the Chair of the Committee, consequently means that the Chair will certainly be from the parliamentary majority and thus reduce space for activities of opposition MPs. Solution that would enable an opposition MP to chair the Committee and/or a solution that the Committee must be obligated to carry out a certain amount of parliamentary control at the request of all opposition members, would create more room for activities of the opposition in the Committee. It would also increase confidence in the achievements of the overall work of Committees and the security and defense sector as a whole.

Law should prescribe the content (i.e. structure, types and categories of information) of the reports concerning the work of institutions and bodies of defense and security sector submitted to the Committee. This is not the case today and the Committee depends on the decision and good will of those who are supposed to be the subjects of oversight. The Committee should discuss the reports of inspectors and inspection control services which perform oversight over the work of defense and security sector, the report on the work of courts in part related to the approval of measures of secret surveillance as well as the report of the Protector of human rights and freedoms in the part relating to complaints on the work of institutions in the sectors of defense and security. Thereby, oversight will be complete and a sound basis for the work of the Committee will be created. If the Law on energy, at least in principle, can determine the contents of the reports on the state of affairs in the energy sector, there is no reason that this Law fails to determine which information should be given to the Committee by the entities it oversees.

However, parliamentary oversight and the power of Parliament in general, lies in the competencies of MPs being professionally conducted, which includes the membership in the committees. Unfortunately, more than half of the deputies are not professionally employed in the Parliament of Montenegro. There is a conflict of interest because some of MPs perform highest functions in the public administration, public funds and public services along with their parliamentary tasks. Parliament performs oversight of the government and control hearing is one of the control mechanisms. In that case, it may happen that a parliamentary committee schedules a control hearing of the head of some state institution, only to have their fellow MP or the member of the same parliamentary committees taking the stand. At the same time, each MP can simultaneously be a member of three parliamentary committees, and MPs who are performing several functions are commonly members of committees. The question is, whether and to what extent such attitude toward the function and tasks of an MP, contribute in achieving the proclaimed goals, such as increasing the quality and efficiency of the parliament, the control function of parliament, gaining greater public confidence in parliament. It is obvious that MPs who perform several functions cannot entirely commit themselves to fulfilling parliamentary duties, with both the parliament and democracy on the loss.

Stevo Muk

President of the Managing Board

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The State Audit Institution in Montenegro

External audit of the public sector is one of the main instruments used to strengthen the responsibility of the public authorities and raise general public trust in public sector. Its primary goal is to give full and exact report on regularity of use of the public funds, but also to show whether the institutions that are users of the public funds managed to meat goals they had been given funds for.

State Audit Institution (SAI) is independent and supreme authority of the state audit established by the Law on State Audit Institution in April 2004. It is institutional, external, independent, professional and impartial control of the budget expenditures and state property management in Montenegro. SAI issued 46 audit reports so far: six reports on the Final Statement of the Budget of Montenegro and the rest on individual audits. With enlargement of the SAI’s capacities and implementation of demanding new audits, the total number of audits steadily grows with every year.

Members of the Parliament, representatives of the executive authorities and international organizations often publicly compliment the SAI and its work. There hasn’t been significant contribution to the work of SAI by the NGOs in Montenegro so far.

Taking all stated facts into account, our opinion is that it is time to give more objective review of the SAI’s work so far, its position in institutional framework, ways other authorities use the conclusions of this institution and last but now least the over whole results of its work so far. Institute Alternative (IA), with the support of the European Fund for the Balkans, conducted the project “Towards the best EU practice: Strengthening the Influence of the External Financial Control in Montenegro”. Project includes analysis of the legal framework of the financial control, capacity of the State Audit Institution (SAI) and the quality of the inter-institutional cooperation. The goal of the project and this publication as its direct product, is to provide recommendations whose implementation could lead to the improvement of SAI’s work and thus its influence on the system of public finance.

The materials used for this investigative report are the conclusions from the interviews conducted with representatives of the audited entities, SAI, Ministry of Finance, the State Prosecutor’s Office, Public Procurement Directorate, District Authority for offenses Podgorica and Members of Parliament Committee on Economy, Finance and Budget. We also used press clipping materials and articles on SAI from the print media IA have been collecting over the past years . We have taken into account the comparison with the practice and the legal framework of the state audit institutions in selected countries in this region (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia). During the research we made a constructive cooperation with the SAI and issued basic questionnaire consisting of thirty questions and a demand for gaining access to the information, and interviewed Heads of the Sectors.

This analysis contains the recommendations mainly issued to the SAI, but also to the other members of the process of control of the public expenditures in Montenegro. Beside its main goal to influence the accountable decision makers to implement new solutions into a legal framework and practice, this analysis should contribute to the number of works on external audit in Montenegro.

It is a good opportunity to solve certain issues that posed a great burden to the work of the SAI before the upcoming amendments to the Law on State Audit Institution planned for 2011. The importance of further efforts on strengthening the capacities of SAI was also highlighted by the European Commission in the Opinion on the Application of Montenegro for Membership of the European Union as one of the seven key priorities to be fulfilled if Montenegro is to start accession negotiations.

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Report on democratic oversight of security services

Institute Alternative prepared a translation of the Council of Europe’s (Venice Commission) “Report on democratic oversight of security services”, aiming to distribute it to stakeholders, MPs, representatives of the security and defense sector institutions and all interested parties. This publication will contribute to the presently poor basis of translated papers and academic works on the topic of democratic oversight in Montenegro. It was Institute Alternative’s aim to encourage a more competent public and professional debate concerning this important issue for further development of democracy and human rights, accountability and transparency of public institutions.

This publication was prepared in the framework of the project “Parliamentary oversight of the security and defence sector – Law and practice”, supported by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.