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Concrete Steps for Strenghtening Cooperation of Parliament and SAI Announced

In the next two months, the Committee on Economy, Finance and Budget and the State Audit Institution, will, with our help, work on defining the elements of a protocol on cooperation.

This is the key conclusion from the meeting, held in the Parliament of Montenegro, between the members of the SAI Senate, parliamentary Committee on Economy, Finance and Budget and Institute alternative.

Issues raised at the meeting were the need of paying more attention to individual reports on the audit (besides the audit of the final budget account), the separation of the discussion on the annual report of the SAI and the discussions on the revision of the final accounts, reporting on the implementation of recommendations and monitoring the work of the auditees in this field.

The plans to form a subcommittee on the control of public finances, its scope of activities and the possibility of creating a special committee in the future were also discussed. At the meeting, the participants also discussed the appointment of missing member of the Senate, initiating criminal charges as well as the need to solve the problem of spatial capacities for the work of the SAI.

It was jointly stated that, in order to strengthen mutual cooperation and achieve more effective control over public finances, it is necessary to formalize cooperation between the Committee and SAI, and that in this light, with the participation of the IA, in the future; the relevant document should be defined.

Committee members who attended the meeting were: Aleksandar Damjanović, Zoran Jelić, Filip Vuković, Almer Kalač, Strahinja Bulajić, Milutin Đukanović i Goran Tuponja. On behalf of Senate of SAI, Milan Dabović, Branislav Radulović, Dragiša Pešić i Nikola Kovačević attended the meeting.

The meeting is the part of the project “Together towards accountability – strengthening the impact of the state audit in Montenegro”, supported by the he Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade. The goal of the project is to increase the level of the implementation of SAI’s recommendations, as well as strengthening ties with between the SAI and the Parliament of Montenegro, civil society organizations and internal auditors in the public sector.

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Appeal to establish the working group for improvement of the control mechanisms of the Parliament

It is necessary to further strengthen the control function of the Parliament, and there are four possible directions for improvement, based on: the precise definition and delimitation of competences between the branches of government; regulating control mechanisms, transparency in the work of parliament; strengthening the capacity of professional services.

IA-Naslovna

“Although the European Commission in the Progress Report states that the control function of the Parliament was improved, our findings show that over the last year there was no progress,” said Jovana Marović, research coordinator at the Institute Alternative. At the press conference “Towards the more efficient use of the control function of the Parliament”, which was realized with the support of the Open Society Institute, Think Tank Fund from Budapest, Jovana said that statistics show that MPs used less control mechanisms available at their disposal, than in 2013 and that there was no progress in the regulation of the control mechanisms, or normative regulation of relations with the executive power. Therefore, according to her, it is necessary to adopt the Law on Parliament that would precisely define the jurisdiction of Parliament in relation to the other branches of government, i.e., to use legal regulations that would oblige the government and other state institutions to work and report on the basis of findings of the Parliament.

Control and consultative hearings are not making sufficient impact in practice, and because of that, they often end with the harmonization of the summary of information that is only a review of the situation of the topic of the hearing. Opening remarks by representatives of the institutions are too long, and they should be repealed, and to introduce the practice of sending written contributions before the meeting. Also, it is necessary to publish audio recordings of the hearings. When it comes to Parliamentary questions, the session dedicated to this control mechanism should be organized once a month, such as those dedicated to the Prime Minister hour.

Public policy researcher in IA, Dina Bajramspahić, pointed out that, since two new initiatives for the parliamentary inquiry are announced, it is necessary to previously form a parliamentary working group for the improvement of the Law on Parliamentary Investigation, in order to prevent the repetition of the problems of the previous mechanisms. In the first place, it is necessary to prescribe penalties for failure of delivering the information to the Inquiry committee, as well as giving false testimony before the Inquiry Committee; prescribe mandatory submission of responses to all individual requests of the members of the Board of the Inquiry Committee, etc. This working group should be engaged in all directions for further improvement of parliamentary work, and it would also include representatives of the civil sector through public calls.

Marko Sošić, public policy researcher, pointed out that the IA has noted a number of problems when it comes to the formulation of the national budget in the draft Law on the budget for 2015, as well as its adoption by the Parliament, ambiguities in the Rules of Procedures and lack of capacity in the Parliamentary Service. In order to have the Parliament able to make meaningful, substantiated and necessary amendments to the national budget, where those are needed, it is necessary to implement the amendments to the legal framework and practice. They are related to the opening of the capital budget, capacity building of the Parliamentary Service, specifying the Rules of Procedure in the part referring to the consideration of draft laws in the working bodies and harmonization of amendments. It is also necessary to completely reform the way the amendments to the budget proposal are being prepared.

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Institute Alternative established its Advisory Board

Since 2007, Institute Alternative, working as a scientific-research center, contributes to the improvement of public policy in Montenegro, acting within its main fields (public administration, parliamentary program, accountable public finances, security and defense). Numerous studies, public policy proposals, participation in working groups are behind us. We are continuously working on improving our own research capacity, research agenda and network of external consultants and experts. In this regard, we have established Advisory Board that consists of prominent experts in the field of our activities. The primary objective of this body is to offer opinions and guidelines towards defining our annual work program and research agenda.

The members of Advisory Board are:

  • Prof. dr Florian Bieber, Professor at University of Graz
  • Dr Katarina Ott, Director of the Institute for Public Finances, Zagreb
  • Sonja Stojanović Gajić, Director of Belgrade Center for Security Studies
  • Natasha Wunsch, associate fellow at Oppenheim Center within German
  • Council for Foreign Affairs (DGAP), PhD candidate at London University
  • Munir Podumljak, President of the Partnership for Social Development, Zagreb
  • Dr Kristie Evenson, independent researcher and evaluator in the fields of democratization and civil society development
  • Prof. dr Ivan Koprić, Professor at the Faculty of Law at University of Zagreb and President of the Institute for Public Administration
  • Kristof Bender, Deputy President of the European Stability Initiative (ESI).

The Advisory Board will assist in establishing strategic partnerships and contribute to greater visibility of Institute Alternative.

Advisory-Board-Header-NEW

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Training for our researchers – TRAIN and DCAF seminars

Institute alternative announces with pleasure that our organization has once again been chosen to participate in TRAIN programme (Think Tanks providing Research and Advice through Interaction and Networking), financed by the Federal Foreign Office (Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe) and implemented by DGAP (German Council on Foreign Relations). The aim of the TRAIN programme is to strengthen the dialogue among the research centers in Western Balkans, political actors and decision makers.

Three researchers from IA have participated in this programme by now. This year the participant representing IA will be Dina Bajramspahić, our researcher.

The topic of Dina’s research deals with how to improve the police integrity. The aim of the analysis is to contribute to the increased trust in the Police and to find out what is to what extent the police officers are being systemically motivated and encouraged to professional work. She will analyze the shortcomings of the existing framework for the promotion of integrity, as well as to initiate the open dialogue about launching new incentive measures.

In that regard, Dina has participated in first round of TRAIN programme held in Belgrade from April 19-22, which was dedicated to the design of the research, methodology and techniques of the policy paper writing, analysis of the research environment and plans for advocating the recommendations.

Aiming to find out more about international standards in the field of police integrity, she has also participated in the seminar “The role of independent bodies for complaints of citizens on police” The seminar was organized by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) and the Centre for Security Studies in Sarajevo. During the seminar, the experiences of Belgium, Northern Ireland and Hungary were presented.

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Employment in municipalities still not rationalized

Local self-governments in Montenegro have continued the practice of non-rational employment in 2014, although they did not even adopted the analysis on maximum number of officers, nor the plan to reduce the number of employees, which had to be done until the end of last year.

All municipalities, with the exception of Andrijevica, Danilovgrad, Mojkovac and Šavnik, have conducted the recruitment procedures during 2014, even though did not meet the formal prerequisites for this. None of the municipalities implemented the obligations stipulated by Public Sector Internal Reorganisation Plan. In order to reduce the number of employees, municipalities were required to prepare and produce an analysis of the optimal number of employees that would further lead to the adoption of new regulations, as well as to the preparation of the plan of rationalization. Although the deadline expired for all three obligations, municipalities have responded to our request that they are not in possession of the aforementioned documents, or that they are currently working on their preparation. According to official data, there are currently at least 2300 supernumerary employees in the municipalities, although the number could be higher, since the projections are made without previous analysis which have not yet been conducted.

When asked about the total number of employees, local governments do not submit data for employees in state companies and institutions, but only for the central administration. Municipality of Žabljak has refused to answer to our request on this basis. According to information submitted by the municipalities to the Institute, on 31 December 2014, there were 3772 officers and employees in total working in local administrations (not including data for Bijelo Polje, Žabljak and Gusinje). Previously published data from the Ministry of Finance show that in September 2014 the total number of employees, including state institutions and companies founded by the municipality, was 11,778, which is 1,270 more than in 2012.

The municipalities that admitted the highest number of employees in the last year were Podgorica, Pljevlja, Herceg Novi and Nikšić. Municipality of Cetinje has not provided us with information on the number of officers who have been employed throughout the last year, with the explanation that we can access the data only in their premises. Municipality of Bijelo Polje has not responded to our request, continuing, thus, to violate the legal obligation to submit information on the basis of free access to information.

Jovana MAROVIĆ
Research coordinator

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Institute Alternative awards the best academic papers

Institute alternative awards three master’s and doctoral thesis defended during 2012, 2013 and 2014 in the areas of good governance, human rights, rule of law and democratization.

The best award thesis will be awarded with 400 EUR, while the doctoral thesis will be awarded with 750 EUR.

The eligible candidates are:

  • The citizens of Montenegro or persons residing in Montenegro, who defended their master’s or doctoral thesis in Montenegro or abroad during 2012, 2013, 2014, with the topic related to, in broadest sense, the good governance, rule of law, human rights or democratization, with the focus on Montenegro, i.e. its legal, political and institutional context;
  • Non-Montenegrin citizens who defended their master’s or doctoral thesis in Montenegro or abroad, with the topic related to, in broadest sense, the good governance, rule of law, human rights or democratization, with the focus on Montenegro, i.e. its legal, political and institutional context.

The topic of the thesis can be directly or indirectly related to one of the areas of research and work of the Institute Alternative: public administration, public finances managements, parliamentary work and parliamentary oversight of the executive branch, security and defense (including the reform of the criminal law and judiciary), social policy, or more simply, to the topics of: good governance, rule of law, human rights or democratization in the context of Montenegro’s accession to the EU. For more details, check the programme areas and publications of the Institute. If you are in doubt whether your thesis falls into the scope of this competition, we encourage you to send us your work and the application.

The thesis should be sent until May 15th 2015, in electronic version to e-mail: info@institut-alternativa.org. In addition to the thesis, the candidates are obligated to send a) the copy of the diploma obtained after the defending of the academic thesis and b) copy of the ID.

The selection of the best application will be done by the jury appointed by the President of the Managing Board of the Institute Alternative.

All candidates will be informed in writing of the outcome of the competition no later than 60 days after the conclusion of the competition.

Institute Alternative acquires the right to publish award-winning works in electronic or printed publication for non-commercial purposes only.

Institute Alternative reserves the right not to award the prize if the quality of applications is not at the required level in the opinion of the evaluation committee – jury.