Research Coordinator Jovana Marovic participated in the workshop on strategic forecasting organized for alumni TRAIN program from 7-10. December 2014 in Berlin.
(The rest of this post is currently available only in Montenegrin — translation coming soon.)
On Monday, December 15, at a round table titled “Professionalization of managerial staff: Between state and politics”, we will discuss the status of the high managerial staff in the Montenegrin state administration, with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES).
(The rest of this post is currently available only in Montenegrin — translation coming soon.)
“Montenegro still lacks the basic prerequisites for the successful application of ethical standards in public administration”, was stated at today’s press conference organized by the Institute Alternative.
Next to representatives of Institute Alternative, Assistant Secretary General of Union of Municipality of Montenegro, Ljubinka Radulović has delivered her speech on key aspects of implementing ethical standards in Montenegrin municipalities.
In regard to the national level, the implementation of Ethical code hasn’t responded to requirements expected from the Code – to establish a system of accountability and sanctions for violations of Rules of conduct.
We are reminding that this Act was adopted in 2012 in order to improve the implementation of the new Law on Civil Servants and State Employees. The decision about establishing the Ethical Committee to monitor the implementation of this Code was adopted n January 2013.
“However, the results of the work of the Ethical Committee by now are very modest.”, said Milena Milošević, researcher at Institute Alternative.
In his previous work, the Ethical Committee has received only one complaint relating to the conduct of a civil servant and one initiative to issue its opinion on the application of the Code. Although the designated contact persons should inform this body of all complaints in relation to violations of the code submitted directly to the senior officers, reporting about the existence of these complaints has not been done, which means that the complaints did not exist at all.
“The modest results of the Ethical Committee are the result of its imprecisely defined competencies and details of activities of this body,” said Milošević.
From its founding until today, this committee has not fulfilled the obligation to meet once a month. In the period from April 2nd 2013 to October 24th 2014, the Committee held a total of 11 sessions. Four more sessions have been convened, which are not held due to lack of quorum, consisting of a majority of all members.
“The Ethical Committee is facing the problem of lack of essential prerequisites for the elementary functions, e.g. non-payment of reimbursements to its members, “said Milošević, noting that two members of the committee haven’t been paid for their work in this body, for at least half a year since its foundation.
In its analysis of implementation of ethical standards in Public administration, Institute Alternative has prepared the set of recommendations related to: the strengthening of control over the implementation of ethical standards, the independence of bodies responsible for monitoring their implementation, the need for developing specific guidelines for the application of ethical standards in state bodies, facilitating the filing of complaints for violations of codes of ethics, as well as intensive promotion of ethical standards in public administration.
It was pointed out that Montenegro has yet to adopt a Code of Ethics of elected representatives.
Assistant Secretary General of the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro, Ljubinka Radulović, has emphasized the fact that Ethical Codes of elected representatives and officials of the local governments, whose adoption was recommended by the Union, are contributing to strengthening the relations and confidence between citizens and authorities.
While working on the models of these Codes and Ethical Codes of local servants and state employees, as well as guidelines for their application, Union of Municipalities has had significant support of international community, including Council of Europe and OSCE.
Models of ethical committees were made at the local level with special limits prescribed in respect of individuals who may be members of these bodies.
It also stipulates that the members of the ethics committee are elected on the basis of public calls. That is not the case at the national level, where the senior officers of several bodies have the discretion to appoint representatives for membership in the Ethical committee.
With the aim of strengthening the moral condemnation of violations of codes of ethics, Ethic committees at the local level have the option to give public opinion about the violation of ethical standards of conduct.
Ljubinka Radulović also emphasized that the body responsible for the application of ethical standards shouldn’t wait for a complaint in order to react, but to be proactive in their work. In this context, a positive example of the ethical committee of the municipality of Nikšić, whose members take appropriate initiatives and organized meetings to promote Ethical codes.
Although the Ethical Committee, body which monitors the implementation of the Ethical Code of civil servants and state employees was also invited to appoint a representative to participate in today’s event, the members of this body haven’t responded to the invitation.
Conclusions and recommendations from our research are available here (in Montenegrin only)
This project has been supported by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.
At the press conference, which will take place in the PR Centre on Monday, 8 December, at 11am, we will present an analysis of the implementation of ethical standards in public administration, with an emphasis on the work of the Ethics Committee in charge of monitoring the implementation of the Ethics’ Code of state employees.
Considering the fact that this body is established for more than a year, we will point out the specific problem in its work and give recommendations for its improvement. Among other things, you will also have the chance to hear something about the number of meetings held, their key topics as well as number of opinions issued by the Ethical Committee.
Assistant Secretary General of Union of Municipalities of Montenegro, Ms Ljubinka Radulović will join the conference, speaking about application of ethical standards in municipalities. On behalf of Institute Alternative, Milena Milošević and Marko Sošić will attend the conference.
Project research is supported by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.
Agency for protection of personal data and free access to information endorsed our appeal against the decision of the Ministry of Interior regarding the availability of the Ministry’s direct agreements.
In July 2014, Institute Alternative submitted the request for free access to information on all public procurement contracts concluded via direct agreement in the last three years to the Ministry of Interior. In response to this request, the Ministry informed us that all direct agreements are posted on the website of the Public Procurement Administration, which is factually incorrect.
The Public Procurement Law does not stipulate the obligation of publishing direct agreements. Additionally, it does not specify that direct agreements should be concluded in exceptional circumstances only or that they ought to be explained, since they represent the least transparent process which is not preceded by public announcement. In the previous period, direct agreements have often been the subject of abuse by the contracting authorities. Thus, seven municipalities in 2013 had exceeded the legal limit for the use of this agreement while the Municipality of Plav had concluded all procurements via this type of procedure. Moreover, the State Audit Institution pointed out that the state authorities, including the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Finance, had exceeded their limit for the use of direct agreements in 2011, and that they provided incorrect information to the Public Procurement Administration.
In deciding on the appeal of Institute Alternative, the Agency for protection of personal data and free access to information annulled the decision of the Ministry of Interior, stating that the requested information is not publicly available, and instructed the Ministry to provide information to the applicant. Accordingly, it is important to once again urge the state authorities to fully and accurately respond to requests for access to information and thereby provide access to documents in a timely manner and prevent unnecessary proceedings before the competent Agency.
In the forthcoming period we will monitor implementation of the decision of the Agency for protection of personal data and free access to information in the hope that it will ensure more transparent, efficient and accountable work of the Ministry of Interior and other state authorities.
Jovana Marović
Research Coordinator
“The Prosecutor’s Office must investigate concessions”, stated MPs this summer when discussing the report of the Commission for concessions. Since then, we do not have the Law, or the registry, indictments, or any other significant developments in this area. The focus of the Government is only one job, one with the Chinese about the highway, while the conditions for the implementation of public-private partnerships and concessions remain chaotic.
Montenegro is losing more than 12 million euros due to poor concession policy, which is a 2012 information, after which the government ceased to inform the public about the debts of the concessionaires. Around that time, the Government also ceased activities on the adoption of a new legal framework, that started in 2011. It might be due to lack of political commitment, lack of capacity, or overcrowded agenda in preparation of laws – in any case, this year will pass without the adoption of the law on public-private partnerships and concessions. The EU says that the current law is incompatible with good practices in this area, and that there is an extremely low level of knowledge of PPPs and concessions in the state bodies and local self-government.
And there are problems at all levels: from the legal and institutional framework, to a lack of transparency. Website of the Concession Commission, and the register of concessions, for some time is unavailable or does not exist. The same thing happened during the previous two years because the Concessions Commission simply forgot to pay for domain hosting. This probably because of the excessive workload of the Commission, that during entire 2013 had only two complaints to decide upon. Despite this, draft budget foresees a sum of 85,000€ for the work of the President and members of the Commission. The so-called concessions register does not contain information about financial payments. Local government, which is to be paid 70% of concession fees for concessions concluded in their territory, does not have any insight in the payments dynamics from the State Treasury.
“The Prosecutor’s Office must investigate concessions”, stated MPs this summer when discussing the report of the Commission for concessions. Since then, we do not have the Law, or the registry, indictments, or any other significant developments in this area. The focus of the Government is only one job, one with the Chinese about the highway, while the conditions for the implementation of public-private partnerships and concessions remain chaotic. It even seems that the MPs themselves are OK with this situation, since there is no positive response to initiative we submitted in June to conduct a control hearing of officials in charge of the situation in the area of concessions in the Committee for Economy, Finance and Budget.
There is no information on how Montenegro’s natural resources are exploited. Moreover, in May, the State Audit Institution indicated that the concessions are repeatedly awarded to those concessionaires who do not honor their contractual obligations and that the situation in the area of concessions is alarming. These days, in light of changes of another important law for the control of public spending – Public Procurement Law – the executive is trying hard to explain how the black list of bidders who violate the provisions of the contracts are not defined by the EU acquis and that it is up to the member states to decide whether or not to adopt additional mechanisms to combat corruption. One can conclude that the political elite does not favor the “black list” in order to be able to continue use concessions and public procurement to “thanks” private partners for financing electoral campaigns and other activities. All current, extremely modest, results in the fight against corruption are achieved under pressure, and the motto remains: „what has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun“.
Jovana MAROVIĆ
Research Coordinator and member of the Working group for Chapter 23
Text originally published in the ,,Forum” section of the daily Vijesti
