Posted on

Strengthening public finance oversight – How can the state and internal auditors cooperate better?

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.

Posted on

First complaint on www.mojauprava.me: The rule of an exemption

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.

First complaint submitted on the website refers to employment in the National Archives of Montenegro.

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.

Milena MILOŠEVIĆ
Public policy researcher

Posted on

Press Release: Ignoring the conclusions of the parliamentary committee is alarming

Institute alternative refers praise to the Anti – Corruption Committee for preparing a Report on the implementation of conclusions of this Committee. Unfortunately, the report points out an alarming disregard of the conclusions by state authorities. We invite other parliamentary working bodies to introduce this good practice and prepare their reports in order to contribute to a more consistent implementation of the conclusions.

One of the key instruments for additional control of the Government and a contribution to solving problems in the work of state bodies identified by the working bodies of the Parliament are the conclusions of these working bodies, which often serve as a corrective of the Government. However, neither the Rules of Procedures, nor the other laws specifically define the status of the conclusions, which means that they are not legally binding on the institutions. Taking into account the constitutionally prescribed role of the Parliament, a certain level of political culture was expected in order to consider these conclusions even in principle binding for all state authorities and to be applied in bona fide.

The Anti – Corruption Committee’s report on the implementation of the conclusions – which were adopted unanimously – clearly shows that the thesis that the Government and state authorities acknowledge the role of the Parliament is unfounded. The Anti – Corruption Committee has requested 12 information, but only 4 of them were submitted by the state authorities, which has affected the further work of the Committee.

An additional 10 conclusions did not impose a special obligation of submitting information, so their implementation is more difficult to evaluate. Also, the worrisome problem is the quality of the information submitted by the state authorities, which are, as stated in the Committee’s report, “quite limited”.

If the implementation of the conclusions of the working bodies and the Parliament does not urgently improve, the Parliament will remain “a chat room”, whose discussions have no effect or influence on improving the state authorities’ work and implementation of public policies, which is one of its most important tasks.

This report also best illustrates how arbitrary the comments about “parliamentary dictatorship” in Montenegro are. It also shows that such comments are based on the incidental discord between the executive and the legislature, and not on the separation of power of two branches of government.

Dina BAJRAMSPAHIĆ
Public Policy Researcher

Posted on

Infographic: Debt of Our Municipalities

The best indicator of the state of our local finances, in addition to many others, is the debt of municipalities.

The total debt of our municipalities at the end of 2014 amounted to 166.94 million euro. The most indebted municipality is Budva, with the total debt of over 65 million euro (more than the sum of total budgets of all municipalities in the northern region), followed by the Capital city Podgorica, Nikšić, Herceg Novi, Bijelo Polje, Pljevlja…

Overall, the debt of municipalities has decreased in comparison to 2013, but only for 2,6%. Some municipalities, however, have additionally increased debt during 2014 (Herceg Novi, Bar, Kolašin…).

The total amount of outstanding liabilities related to expenditures that are contracted, but not paid, is 119.19 million euro.

The municipalities with the highest amount of outstanding liabilities for the salaries and wages of their employees are Municipality of Berane, Bijelo Polje, Budva… Outstanding commitments for capital expenditures amount 24.61 million euro. The only local governments without outstanding obligations are Municipality of Podgorica and Rožaje.

Bearing in mind that these are the data delivered to the Ministry of Finance by the municipalities themselves, they should be considered with a pinch of salt. State Audit Institution’s reports on budgets of local governments show that the official municipal data cannot always be trusted.

Posted on

Municipalities Are Breaking The Law While Contracting Goods

Irrational planning and frequent changes of plans, violations of provisions of the law, contracting goods and services without public insight, remain central problems of procurement at the local level.

In 2014, Montenegrin local governments have spent more than 10 million euro on public procurement. This amount doesn’t include data for Municipality of Bijelo Polje, considering the fact that this local government has not responded to the Institute alternative’s request for free access to information, sent three mounts ago.

A total of 13 municipalities have violated the legal norm for the use of direct agreement, especially Municipality of Andrijevica 90.98%, Municipality of Nikšić 46.24%, Municipality od Žabljak 31.88% and Municipality of Cetinje 22.61%. Even though this practice of overuse of direct agreement as the least transparent procedure is being repeated year after year and classified as a misdemeanor punishable by fine, Public Procurement Administration fails to keep records about it. It is not clear whether the municipality employees are taking responsibility for these violations. Public procurement officers we surveyed earlier this year warned that often they don’t have immediate access to all the direct contracts concluded, so they can’t keep records about it.
There was no progress towards a more realistic budget planning for public procurement in 2014. Municipalities, with the exception of Municipality of Kotor and Municipality of Podgorica, have been changing their plans during the year. The Municipality of Bijelo Polje has changed the public procurement plan most often, sixteen times, and Municipality of Bar has prepared seven amendments to the originally approved plan. All local governments had significant deviations between completed and planed budget for public procurement in 2014.
Public Procurement report, as we were informed by the municipalities, is publicly available and published exclusively on the website of the Capital City. In order to achieve higher level of transparency and prevent frequent violations of The Law on Public Procurement, it is necessary to publish direct agreements on the web sites of the contract authorities, in accordance with Article 138 of the Law on Local Self – Government. Furthermore, direct agreements should be published on the website of the Public Procurement Administration in electronically readable form, to enable grouping data.

Jovana MAROVIĆ
Research Coordinator

Full information about public procurement at the local level can be found here. (in Montenegrin only)

The research is conducted within the project “Civil Society and Citizens against Corruption in Public Procurement”, which is implemented by the Institute Alternative with the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands. The activities aim at strengthening the cooperation between state and non-state actors in the joint efforts in identifying irregularities in public procurement and formulating the recommendations for improvement.