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Announcement of the Press Conference: Police Integrity in the Western Balkans

Regional network of civil society organizations POINTPULSE is organizing a panel “Police Integrity in the Western Balkans” that will be held on Friday, February 27th, at 10h in the Media Centre in Belgrade (Terazije 3).

These questions will be addressed at the event:

  • How can civil society encourage accountability and integrity in policing?
  • What are main problems in developing accountable police in the region?
  • What are the main risks of corruption in the police?
  • In which parts of the police there is most danger of corruption?
  • What should be the priorities of the police reform process in the region?

Panelists will be as follow:

  • Sasa Djordjevic, Researcher, Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP),
  • Denis Hadzovic, Acting Director, Centre for Security Studies (CSS) from Sarajevo,
  • Dina Bajramspahić, Public Policy Researcher, Institute Alternative (IA) from Podgorica,
  • Plator Avdiu, Researcher, Kosovo Centre for Security Studies (KCSS) from Pristina.

Moderator will be Slobodan Georgiev, Programme Coordinator at the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) Serbia.

The discussion will be held in Serbian, Montenegrin, Bosnian and English language. Simultaneous translation will be provided.

This event is a part of the “Western Balkans Pulse for Police Integrity and Trust – POINTPULSE” project supported by the European Union through Civil Society Facility programme (EuropeAid/136-034/C/ACT/Multi).

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Meeting with the contracting authorities

Today we organized the meeting with public procurement officers. This meeting was the follow up of the research on the attitudes of the contracting authorities and bidders about the risk for corruption in the public procurement procedure. In the first phase of the research, the public procurement officers have been submitting their remarks and suggestion, responding to the questionnaire made by the Research team of the Institute Alternative, which was sent to them via email. The first results of the research were presented on today’s meeting.

According to the answers, public procurement officers think that these are the key problems faced during the implementing the Law:

  • The legal possibility of filing the complaint during all phases of the procurement procedure, as well as the annulment of the procedure by the State Commission due to inadequately prepared tender documentation,
  • Incompetency of the Commission for Bid Opening and Evaluation which only formally performs the opening and closing the bid, while all the work is done by the public procurement official,
  • The public procurement official is forced to remind the leadership of the institution to the Law, sometimes even in written form,
  • Non-compliance of the bylaws with the Law on public procurement,
  • Contradictory opinions of Public Procurement Directorate and the Commission for the control of public procurement procedures on the topic of interpretation of specific legal norms in the Law
  • Lack of information about all direct agreements contracted within one organ.

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.

Jovana Marović
Research coordinator

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Public Policies

This collection of papers is a result of the work of “Public policy school”. Within this Collection, five authors analyze the term and the key elements of the public policy, from five different perspectives. The second part of this collection of papers integrally contains the analysis “Policy making review – Montenegro” prepared by SIGMA during the 2013, for which the Institute alternative has collected information.

The six–month long intensive program for acquisition of knowledge and skills in the field of public policy is being realized since 2012 with the aim to contribute to the quality development of public policy in Montenegro by strengthening the capacity of stakeholders in policy development as well as to raise the level of understanding of the public policy development among key actors, but also to strengthen communication and cooperation among participants from various sectors, institutions and organizations.

Within five modules, the participants of the Public policy school have the opportunity to learn about term, actors, instruments, methods of research and the content of sector policies. So far, the programme of Public Policy School was attended by 80 participants, among which the largest number of persons employed in state administration and a smaller number of employees in local government, trade union organizations, the media, the activists of NGOs as well as the best undergraduate and postgraduate students.

In order to additionally contribute to the study of public policy in Montenegro and to facilitate the preparation for the future attendees, we have decided to collect key lectures in a unique collection of papers. The preparing and publishing of this collection of papers is supported by the Commission for the Allocation of Revenue from Gambling.

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Statement regarding the amendments to the Law on National Security Agency

We cannot be satisfied with the final decisions adopted by the Parliament; in particular with the decision which stipulates that the Director of the Agency approves the inspection of registers and databases of legal entities. As we have pointed out many times, the practice of the European Court of Human Rights, which is required for Montenegro as a signatory of the Convention on Human Rights, stipulates the explicit request – the deeper interference with human rights requires higher level of authorization to execute covert measures. In this case, constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy and the right to protection of personal data would be significantly limited. That is the reason why we have insisted to make a distinction in relation to the databases of state authorities and to introduce a higher level of approval by the Supreme Court for the application of these measures. The databases and registers of the legal entities include medical records of citizens, bank data, the data about vulnerable and marginalized groups, etc. In other words – the data subjected to abuse. Therefore, these data should be additionally protected in such manner that the organ, which is not the part of the National Security Agency, confirms the legitimacy of the application of such measures. We share the same point of view when it comes to the electronically determining of the location of the user of the telecommunication networks, monitoring and surveillance in the open.

All that remains is to wait the Constitutional Court to consider these problematic norms.

However, we have to emphasize that three of our proposal have been adopted and we believe that the implementation of aforementioned proposals is going to enable further reforms of the Agency in long terms.

Namely, it is stipulated that from now on, the internal control of the National Security Agency submits its annual work report to the Security and Defense Committee.

We hope that in this way the Parliament would put an additional pressure on the internal control which exercises its authority, checks legality of officers’ practice, and prosecutes them for all forms of abuse.

Second, the right of each member of the Committee on Security to request information held by the NSA is strengthened, by deletion of the article in the Law on National Security Agency which was granting this right to the Committee as a whole. This meant that only a majority in the committee could get information from the NSA, which was a major disadvantage for the MPs of the opposition. Now, the possibilities which enable to the Committee, and to the members of the Board, are complete and available when it comes to control of the NSA, so we hope that the MPs will use this power in the future, and thus help to build the trust in the Agency.

Finally, the Law stipulates the procedure which enables the destruction of data which are not related to the security and, thus, prevent the excessive (collateral) collection of the data. This will both safeguard the rights of “related parties” and legally bound the NSA to destruct personal and family data, as well as all other data whose obtaining is not the goal of aforementioned measures.

In the next period, state organs which have the authority to supervise the work of NSA, which are as follow: Security and Defense Committee, the Agency for Protection of Personal Data and the Ombudsman, should perform direct controls and examine the cases to ensure that the articles of the Law which are meant to protect the citizens’ rights are adequately implemented.

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House of the Civil Society at the agenda of Council for NGOs

During the meeting of the Council for the Development of NGOs held today, the second topic on the agenda was “Discussion on the Government’s response on the question of the Council on the Civic house project.”

During one of the previous meetings of the Council (held on November 17th 2014), the President of the Managing Board of the Institute Alternative and the member of the Council, Stevo Muk, has initiated the request for the information about the negotiations (discussions) between the Government (the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of the Sustainable Development) with the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation (RBF), headquartered in New York, NGO “Fund for Active Citizenship” (FAKT), NGO “Center for Democratic Transition”(CDT) , NGO “Civic Alliance”(GA), and the capital Podgorica on installing a construction building called “Civic House”.

According to information from the media, the intention of the Government is to permanently assign these NGOs specific plot owned by the state of Montenegro, and Podgorica Capital will exempt these three NGOs/foundations from the payment of utilities while RBF would finance construction of the facility, which will be owned by previously mentioned NGOs. The initiative in its entirety can be found here (in Montenegrin only).

In the meantime, the Council has received an answer to its request, which can be found here (in Montenegrin only).

Here we present Stevo’s speech on today’s meeting, in which he pointed out the problematic issues of this case which were even more complicated by the Government’s response. Also, the proposal of the conclusions that the board should adopt is added as well to this presentation.

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“I am unpleasantly surprised with the way that the Government has informed us about this project. The way in which the Government informs us speaks for itself about the relationship of the Government to this Council and representatives of non-governmental organizations. I am not saying this just because of the fact that since the day we made the decision to refer these questions to the government to the day when the Council considers the response more than 60 days have passed. Firstly, I am referring to the content of the response.

The only news that we can learn from the Government’s response is the information that, allegedly last year (since the date was not added), the meeting of representatives of organizations Civic Alliance (GA), Center of Democratic Transition (CDT), and Fund for Active Citizenship (FAKT) has been held with the Prime Minister Milo Đukanović.

Additionally, the Government has introduced us to the fact that after this meeting, the series of other meeting between the representatives of the Government, the capital city and three aforementioned NGOs were held, for which the Government claims to represent “the triangle – research center – investigative journalism-allocation of project funding for NGOs”.

From the response of the Government lead by Milo Đukanović we were not able to find out how much will be the amount of financial contribution provided by the Government and the Capital, nor what exactly is the content of the of the “Civic house” project. In relation to that, we are not convinced by the claim from the Government’s response:

“It is agreed upon that the project, including the construction of the Civic house, will be financed by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation”

If this Government’s claim is true, then it would not have been needed to hold the meeting with the representatives of the CDT, GA and FACT with the Prime Minister nor that the Government expresses its “willingness to participate in this project”.

The response of the Government does not contain any new information in relation to those already published by the media. For this reason, I have the right to doubt that the government, in this case, is hiding some important information about this project. Unfortunately, the general rule is that where there is no transparency, where there is an excess of discretion, there is the highest risk of corruption. I think it’s a burden that should neither Government nor the colleagues from the NGO sector should carry.

We from NGOs must strive to equal principles no matter who is the subject in specific cases. Managing the state property as well as exempting certain subject from the payment of utilities stipulated by the law are both the matters of public interest and we cannot turn our heads only because it comes to NGOs. In the end, we cannot accept the Government’s idealization of one part of NGOs, while the other NGOs are being satanized by the same authority.

I want to emphasize once again, as I have already said to my colleagues from the so called “triangle”, that my goal is not to deny or obstruct the realization of the project, neither as the member of this Council nor as the President of the Managing Board of the Institute Alternative.

My only intention, which I would like to be adopted as the joint view of this Council, is to allow to all NGOs to realize similar projects, but in accordance to open, clear and precise regulations, without being forced to go to Milo Đukanović to exercise the granted right.

According to that, I suggest that the Council adopt the conclusion as follow:

  • The Council expresses it dissatisfaction with the content of the Government’s response related to the building project “Civic house” in Podgorica. From the response submitted, one could not find out much about the project “Civic house” itself.
  • From the Government’s response, one could not come to the conclusion about which questions would be regulated by the memorandum between the Government, GA, CDT and FAKT. From the Government’s response, one could not find out what will be the amount of financial or any other contribution provided by the Government and the Capital in the installment of this house or about the dynamics of its realization.
  • In addition to that, it is not clear when and where the meeting between Milo Đukanović and representatives of the Civic Alliance, Center for Democratic Transition and Fund for Active Citizenship was held.
  • The Council herewith reminds the Government that the Republic of Montenegro does not have any programme support for the purpose of investigative journalism, research centers nor the organizations which allocate the project funding for other NGOs.
  • The Council reminds the Government that the Republic of Montenegro does not have any open, public, written, transparent and fair procedures for the allocation of the state property to NGOs, nor for the exempting certain subject from the payment of utilities, nor for the cessions of the urban construction sites free of charges to NGOs
  • The Council urges the Government, before it makes any legally binding decisions with financial consequences related to the project of Civic house, to prepare and adopt the policy and procedure for the state support to NGOs related to the provision of the working and office space for NGO, in accordance to which the procedures with the Civic house project would be conducted as well as ensure the possibilities to all NGOs to compete for their rights.
  • Council recalls that the Strategy of development of NGOs in Montenegro stipulates the adoption of laws which would define the policy for providing working space for the use of NGOs.
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Transparency Hurts

Transparentnost boliIf you intended to find details about public procurement, arm yourself with patience, concentrate and – take fifteen-day long break.

Representatives of state institutions swear that their work is transparent and emphasize that everything is publicly available on the websites or that all information in possession of the state organ is possible to obtain by sending a request for free access to information. If you dare to contradict, it would be interpreted as an assault, and transparency would be proven on the scale of internationally defined standards.

How the “internationally recognized” transparency works in practice? Let’s take public procurement portal as an example. Entry into force the applicable Law on public procurement, one of the important innovations was the obligation of publishing calls for tender, public procurement plan and concluded contracts online, on website. The Law repealed the obligation of publishing calls for tender in newspaper. This was a huge lost for “Pobjeda”, considering that back than it was still under majority state ownership, so other newspapers have been losing race for these publications.

All participants in the process have been directed to the portal, since 1st of January 2012. If you are interested in public procurement but you don’t participate in procedures, and you simply want to monitor publications about public procurement, try to register on the portal as an user and you’ll see that Public Procurement Administration registers everyone as a bidder or a public procurement officer. Therefore, the existing register of the enterprises is neither precise nor accurate, considering that it contains information about every interested party who has ever visited the portal. Also, it is not possible to assess based on the e-mail address if you are participating in public procurement procedures or not. So, how the on – line instrument for public procurement works?

The browser is not simply to use, nor understandable, nor developed. The information are not classified according to criteria, but according to dates of publication. What’s interesting is the fact that some of the contracts or annexes are published without basic elements, as an ordinary document, without date, seal or signature of the parties concluded the contract. This indicates that, in practice, it is possible that the total amount of concluded business is way higher, but also that legal standards on the percentage of the possible changes of the regulations and amounts predicted in contract are being violated.

By searching each one of 18.685 information/publications available at the portal in 2014, one could conclude that there are 5.318 published contracts and 28 annexes. Yet, information that you get by investing tremendous effort are not 100% final and precise. It is impossible to determine if really this much or more annexes have been concluded during the 2014, because the Public Procurement Administration don’t publish the total amount of annexes concluded annually. The annual report on public procurement will be published in may, so until than we won’t be able to know if all concluded contracts are available at the portal. For example, Public Procurement Administration’s annual report for 2012 states that 4.332 contracts have been concluded during the year, but only 3.154 were published at the portal.

It took us 15 working days to get information about the total number of contracts and annexes in 2014, because: it is not possible to search information by the institution that have concluded the contract, subject or a bidder; the number of contracts obtained by searching the criteria “contract” is smaller than the number you get by insight into the each page and by opening every available/published data; the date of conclusion of the contract and date of publishing do not match, not even close; search by page is also not available, which means that every time user logs in, he must start from the beginning and use step-by-step method to get to the page he left off.

So, the problems are numerous and are significantly limiting the transparency. The question is if the creators of this portal have been aware of these disadvantages or if they have limited the possibility of search on purpose, in order to disable precise and easy search and to leave room for manipulations and concealment of information?

We are only left to diligently record every publication in a special internal archive on a daily basis. Amendments to the Law on Public Procurement adopted in December are predicting obligation of publishing tender documents on this portal. We look forward to greater “amount of information” that we will search as described above.

Jovana MAROVIĆ
Research Coordinator and member of the Working group for Chapter 23

Text originally published in the ,,Forum” section of the daily Vijesti