President of the Managing board, Stevo Muk, has participated in a meeting with the representatives of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized as a part of their official visit to Montenegro. The delegation of the Kingdom of Netherlands was led by Mr Robert de Groot, Director General for European cooperation and Deputy Minister for European Affairs and H.E. Laurent Stokvis, the ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Serbia and Montenegro.
The main topic during the meeting was the role of civil society in the process of Montenegrin negotiation for membership in the EU, as well as the current state of the progress in chapters in regard to the rule law, judiciary and fight against the corruption.
Next to the President of the Managing Board, the meeting was attended by Daliborka Uljarević, Executive Director of the Center for Civic Education and Tea Gorjanc-Prelević, Executive Director of the Human Rights Action.
Today we held a conference that, for the first time, got together representatives of almost every unit of the internal audit on one side, and representatives of the State Audit Institution (SAI) on the other. We talked about how they could establish better cooperation than the existing which consist of reporting and control of the internal audit by the SAI.
Our panelist were PhD Branislav Radulović, the member of Senate and Ms Ana Krsmanović, Director of Directorate for Central Harmonization at Ministry of Finance, and the discussion included the participation of the other representatives of State Audit Institution, Ministry of Finance and directors of Internal Audit from Various ministries, municipalities, funds.
Today, there are 34 internal audit units in public sector and a total of 61 internal auditors. In the period of 2011 – 2014, internal auditors have conducted 342 audits and issued 1214 recommendations, which, according to representatives of the Ministry of Finance, are being implemented significantly.
All the capacity of an internal audit must be used in order to provide a legal, rational, cost – effective and efficient spending of taxpayers’ funds by the public administration.
In order to achieve that, the closer and more efficient connection of State Audit Institution and internal audit is required.
The Institute alternative has prepared a comparative overview of practices of cooperation between supreme audit institutions and internal audits, as a basis for discussion. The examples of cooperation are ranging from the existence of special protocols and agreements on cooperation, through the exchange of information and submission of the reports of the internal audit, to the common audit and approval of the annual internal audit plan by the supreme audit.
Internal auditors have highlighted the problems plaguing their work. The directors’ frequent misunderstanding of the role of internal audits, “backfilling” the auditors by control orders, inability to complete the missing, systematized places – those are examples of the Ministry of Interior or the University of Montenegro, large systems, having only one internal auditor.
The problems of internal auditors’ independence, their relation with directors and the problem of their lack of protection in the case of a conflict on the findings or work, as well as low income that, according to the participants, do not motivate existing auditors or attract new staff, were particularly highlighted.
We have also discussed if the internal auditors monitor the work of the State Audit Institution and how they use the audit reports, as well as the quality of reports produced by the internal auditors themselves and if they are useful to the State Audit Institution.
We believe that we have laid the groundwork for future cooperation between the State Audit Institution and the internal control system in the public sector by organizing this meeting. The participants from the Ministry of Finance and the State Audit Institution announced that they will try to turn this kind of meetings into a practice.
As a contribution to the further development of this subject, we will prepare a summary of today’s discussion with the key topics that have been discussed, as well as the proposals for strengthening cooperation from the comparative practice.
The Conference “Strengthening public finance oversight – How can the state and internal auditors cooperate better?” is the part of the project “Together towards accountability – strengthening the impact of the state audit in Montenegro”, supported by the 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 between the SAI and the Parliament of Montenegro, civil society organizations and internal auditors in the public sector.
Our research coordinator, Jovana Marović, has participated in a conference “Serbia and Montenegro: A Step Closer to Reaching EU Accession?” organized by Center for EU Enlargement Studies (CENS), located at Central European University (CEU) in Budapest. Jovana has spoken about the process of Montenegrin negotiations for EU membership and the civil society involvement in this process, but also about the specific model of direct participation of the NGO in working groups for negotiating chapters. Part of her presentation referred to the EU conditionality policy within the framework of negotiation Chapter 23 which includes a reform of the judiciary, fight against corruption and human rights. Since the panel was committed, among other things, to the migration and unemployment as a key challenges, part of her presentation included preparation for opening the negotiations for Chapter 19, which refers to social policy and employment. The other panelists on this topic were Marija Vuksanović from Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (CEDEM) and Marko Savković from Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence.
The member of the Working group for the creation of Draft Law on the Amendments to the Law on Electronic Media, Goran Đurović in cooperation with NGOs Centre for Civic Education (CCE), Centre for the Development of Non-governmental Organisations (CDNGO), Centre for monitoring and research (CEMI), Institute Alternative (IA) and Juventas, submitted proposals of amendments to the Ministry of Culture regarding this legal text. These proposals relate to measures that introduce order in electronic media market and respond to the interest of public to be better informed on issues of significance for the life of citizens.
NGOs proposed the prescription of minimum percentage of 25% of production for all electronic broadcasters who want to get the broadcasting licence. In that manner, sustainable providers of audio-visual services would function and contribute to better informing of citizens, thus the realization of media pluralism as well. This prevents unfair competition, as well as the possibility of media, which basically do not have their own production and employees, to benefit from marketing thanks to content of questionable quality. This requirement is underpinned in Article 59, paragraph 4, of the existing Law which prescribes: “The broadcaster is obliged to dedicate at least 10% of weekly programme for the purposes of publishing news and information regarding the area it covers”. If broadcasters already have the obligation based on the actual Law, which relates to production of its news programme, there is no reason why not to introduce the obligation for additional 15% of content which satisfies the public interest.
Also, a group of NGOs proposes to oblige the Director of the Agency to revoke the broadcasting license if the broadcaster fails to comply with the authorization, i.e. if not implemented the program obligations in accordance with the submitted application to tender or request for authorization. Namely, if the broadcaster does not produce as many programs as promised in a public competition, he loses broadcasting license. This will force broadcasters to carefully propose their own productions, as well as other contents, and enable the Agency to, regarding the public interest, give the authorization to those broadcasters that can really contribute to media pluralism.
Additionally, NGO group proposed the solutions that lay the conditions for the functioning of Fund for the support of media pluralism. Proposals elaborated on the procedure of allocation of resources to broadcasters for the production of content of public interest. Fund resources can be used by electronic media that have the working licence issued by the Agency, which cover specific local, regional territory or operate on the territory of state and that have significant production (more than 25% within the total production). This ensures that electronic media, which actually produce programme in Montenegro, have the possibility of improving their content in order to better inform the public. Council of AEM makes the final decision on the allocation of resources, but based on the proposal of independent experts. It is basically the model already in use in the EU, when assessing project proposals financed by the European Commission. Fund should be financed with compensation paid by the providers of AVM services on the request (cable operators), that have about 170,000 users, which in the proposed percentage should ensure about 800,000 EUR on annual level. From another source, budget of Montenegro with fix allocation of 0,005% of GDP, it is possible to ensure approximately 200,000 EUR on annually. This amount would not burden the budget of Montenegro additionally, but it could significantly contribute to better informing of citizens when it comes to questions of public interest.
Amendments suggested by NGOs also contain the introduction of mandatory six-months analysis on the application of programme standards, that would clearly indicate which media meet legal obligations as well as the obligations that stem from the licence for the work of electronic media (its own production, etc). Failure to meet legal provisions represents the condition for the revocation of licence of work of a broadcaster or dismissal of director of Agency if s/he fails to respect legal norms. Amendments also introduced new competence and obligation of Agency to, at least once a year, conducts a research of public opinion that relates to trust of viewers and listeners, viewership/listenership of electronic media.
Finally, group of NGOs proposed series of measures which regulate the manner of using the resources from budget, or the prohibition of use of public resources for commercial contents (cross-subsidisation), running a special (separated) accounting and return of resources unless they are spent for the production of content of public interest. Proposals of NGOs entirely comply with the Communication of European Commission regarding the application of rules of state aid for public broadcasting services (2009/C 257/1), but that does not imply the obligation that these issues are only regulated with a contract, as the only form of regulation of international rights and obligations of public broadcasters and their founders. These proposals also contain the measures that increase the transparency of work of Agency for electronic media.
On behalf of non-governmental organisations Centre for Civic Education (CCE), Centre for Development of Non-governmental organisations (CDNGO), Centre for monitoring and research (CEMI), Institute Alternative (IA) and Juventas,
Goran Đurović, member of the Working group for the creation of Draft Law on the Amendments to the Law on Electronic Media.
With the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Norway, next week on May 19th, we are organizing the conference “Strengthening public finance oversight – How can the state and internal auditors cooperate better?”
This meeting of state and internal auditors, first of a kind, is organized with the cooperation with the State Audit Institution (SAI) and Ministry of Finance.
Our intention is to emphasize the need of strengthening the cooperation between SAI and the system of internal audit. We will gather the representatives of external and internal audit, with the aim to talk about future previous cooperation, point out to the potential problems and obstacles and finally, to agree upon the direction of the future cooperation.
In the introductory part of the conference, the speakers will be:
Stevo Muk, President of the Managing board of the Institute alternative, opening of the conference
Branislav Radulović, PhD, the member of the Senate of the SAI— „Relation of the state and internatl audit in the public sector in Montenegro”
mr Ana Krsmanović, Director General of the Directorate for Central harmonization in the Ministry of Finance— „Hitherto improvement in establishing the system of the internal audit“
Marko Sošić, public policy researcher at Institute alternative — „Examples from the comparative practice of the cooperation between SAI and internal control”
All head of units for the internal audit in Montenegro are invited to the conference, as well as the representatives of the Ministry of Finance (Directorate of the Central Harmonization). The conference will be attended by the members of the Senate of SAI, the Head of sectors and units of SAI.
The conference will be held in the hotel Ramada, Lesendro hall, at 11h. If you wish to attend the conference, do not hesitate to contact the project coordinator, Marko Sošić at email: marko@institut-alternativa.org, or at the phone number: 067 239 807.
The Conference “Strengthening public finance oversight – How can the state and internal auditors cooperate better?” is the part of the project “Together towards accountability – strengthening the impact of the state audit in Montenegro”, supported by the 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 between the SAI and the Parliament of Montenegro, civil society organizations and internal auditors in the public sector.
The complaint which illustrates the unfounded decision of an elder not to elect the best evaluated candidate for the job in National Archives, submitted on our website mojauprava.me confirms the previous findings of the Institute alternative (IA).
The interactive website mojauprava.me was launched by IA in late April, within the project ”State Administration in Montenegro – Equal for All”, financially supported by the U.S. Embassy in Podgorica.
Candidate who applied for the job in this institution believes that director has violated the Law on Civil servants and State Employees by not choosing her for the position of Independent Advisor III, even though she was ranked first during the verification capabilities procedure, which comprised a verification of practical and theoretical knowledge and a specific skills of a candidates, carried out by specially formed commission.
Instead, the elder has chosen two candidates who took second and third place on the rank list, for the position which required two officers, and “ignored” the obligation prescribed by the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees to choose a top-ranked candidate. Also, in his decision, he has not provided a special explanation for making the exception of this rule, an obligation also prescribed by the Law.
The candidate submitted a complaint to the Appeal Commission, the state body responsible, among other things, for the protection of the rights of the employees and the candidates for the job in state authorities.
The Appeal Commission has ordered the cancellation of a decision of an elder, but after the repeated procedure and a new complaint, the Commission has founded that the reasons for the selection of the other candidates were eligible.
“The Appeal Commission refused my second complaint stating, among other things, that the reason for choosing the third ranked candidate because he has performed an internship at the National Archives was “eligible” (?!). If the main and only reason for choosing the candidate is a performed internship, the public announcement is just a farce, because all the other candidates are in advance in an unequal position, regardless of much better results”, states in the complaint.
This complaint, sent to us with the complete documentation, confirms the findings of our monitoring report on recruitment and promotion, conducted by the IA since January 2013 and the beginning of the application of the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees.
Our findings point out the abuse of an elder’s discretionary right not to select the best-ranked candidate, because this right is being often applied without explanation or with “flawed explanations”.
Among the most common mistakes is also an unduly favoring of the candidates who have already worked in the state authority. Such conduct is not founded in the Law, which upholds the so-called open position system, meaning that all vacancies are to be filled through a competition or announcement and not through promotion of civil servants and employees, which is the main trait of the so-called career-based system.
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Our research coordinator, Jovana Marović, has participated in a conference “Serbia and Montenegro: A Step Closer to Reaching EU Accession?” organized by Center for EU Enlargement Studies (CENS), located at Central European University (CEU) in Budapest. Jovana has spoken about the process of Montenegrin negotiations for EU membership and the civil society involvement in this process, but also about the specific model of direct participation of the NGO in working groups for negotiating chapters. Part of her presentation referred to the EU conditionality policy within the framework of negotiation Chapter 23 which includes a reform of the judiciary, fight against corruption and human rights. Since the panel was committed, among other things, to the migration and unemployment as a key challenges, part of her presentation included preparation for opening the negotiations for Chapter 19, which refers to social policy and employment. The other panelists on this topic were Marija Vuksanović from Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (CEDEM) and Marko Savković from Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence.
