Consultative meeting: Role of Civil Society In Monitoring “Governance For Growth”
Public Policy School – IV Generation
Presentation of the research results “Assessment of the Police integrity in Montenegro”
Press release: Central public discussion on planned budget of the Capital for the year 2016 has passed unnoticed
Yesterdays half empty press room in KIC ‘Budo Tomovic’ is a proof of the lack of participation of our citizens at public debates on local budgets. Institute alternative participated yesterday at the central public debate on Budget Draft of the Capital City for 2016. Among twenty participants, most of them represented their councilor clubs or Capitols’ institutions and enterprises. There were no citizens or other NGO representatives.
Who knew about the public debate?
The Capital publishes on its website public debate’s programme on Budget Draft, nevertheless the information, though important, remains almost not visibile enough.Citizens can get more information on the whereabouts of the public debate in the section ‘’current events’’ of Secretariat of Finance.
More visible announcement would result in greater citizens’ interest for public debate and their greater contribution to Budget Draft. More visibility in daily newspapers, on TV, radio stations, including social networks would create solid ground for citizens’ participation. Secretariat of Finance should consider all the ways in which its work can become more informative for citizens.
Budget Draft is not understandable to common citizens
The way in which the Budget Draft is presented to citizens every year, doesn’t encourage their constructive participation. Citizen willing to be informed on the public expenses in his/hers own town, should easily and clearly access requested information, understand complicated and unfamiliar budget terms as well as to know on which part of the budget to impose his/hers own propositions.
Capital City doesn’t prepare ‘Citizens’ Budget’ (simplified overview of the budget data), nor is the following justification comprehensive.
It is of extreme importance to elaborate budget lines in detail, such as ‘’remaining expenditure’’, ‘’remaining transfers to individuals’’ etc within the justification, considering millions of Euros allocated to these lines.
Rules on Classification for Montenegrin Budget , Extra-Budgetary Funds and Municipal Budgets don’t encourage transparency, they are full of unclear expenditure definitions and don’t allow local municipalities to present their expenditure in a detailed manner, showing us what stands behind various budget lines.
On the other side, local municipalities are not restricted in justifications by the before mentioned Rules, and can therefore present detailed analytics of all the planned expenses, which wasn’t the case with this years’ Draft Budget of Capital City.
What were our questions?
Our questions referred to the insufficiently visible expenses of certain budget lines and unclear presentation of incomprehensive justification of planned means.
Some of the answers to our questions refer to overall expenses for furnishing building of City’ s Parliament since 2007, when this institution was built, planned means for National kitchen, another call for proposals for building City Theater, the amount of money needed for adaptation of old crossroads and traffic areas for the disabled etc.
Secretariat of Finance didn’t provide us with the information on the total amount of the expenses for furnishing the City’s Parliament building, in 8 years period.
…
Institute alternative will deliver its comments and propositions on the Budget Draft till the end of public debate, November 30.
Information on public debate, documents and budget visualization are available on the following link: Capital City’s Budget Draft published – it’s up to citizens! (in Montenegrin only)
Ivana BOGOJEVIĆ
Public Policy Researcher
Police integrity in Montenegro is compromised
Police integrity in Montenegro has been compromised by the corruption, misuse of official position, excessive use of force and political actions, as shown by the research conducted by Institute alternative.
The research is divided in six chapters, each of them dealing with the analysis of the work transparency, depoliticization, human resources management, financial management and both internal and external control.
Dina Bajramspahic, public policy research, said that the police integrity is compromised.
“The lack of integrity of police officers do not occur only in the form of passive bribery, misuse of official position, but also in the form of excessive use of force, passivity in police action, extortion of testimonies, political actions and other forms of violations of the law on civil servants, and violation of police ethics,” she explained at the press conference.
According to her, the second most common thing which comes to mind of Montenegrin citizens when talking about police is corruption, following security and protection of citizens.
“Only 12% of citizens believe that corruption in Montenegrin police is not prevalent”, Bajramspahic added.
She pinpointed that the integrity of the police officers’ work should be prioritized when it comes to defining the strategic development of this civil service.
“In spite of the fact that some progress has been made, the bodies with the oversight mechanisms still did have not achieved the efficiency in implementation of their competences”, she added.
When it comes to the transparency of the police work, the progress regarding 
the application of the Law on Free Access to Information is more than evident.
“This is best illustrated by the large number of granted access to information in relation to an earlier period,” Bajramspahić pointed out, stating that there is still room to improve internal procedures within the Ministry of Interior (MoI), in order to enable a more efficient approach.
According to her, the most important objection to the MoI and the police in the area of transparency is that significant progress in the field of declassification of information is not achieved.
“That is, there is no information whether it is in accordance with legal provisions the Commission for the periodic review of secrecy has been established, whether the designation of confidentiality has been removed from any document before the legal deadline; if there were any meetings held and which are the results of Commission’s work,” explained Bajramspahić.
She said that the practice of conducting public hearings should be improved and allow for all laws in order to enable citizens and civil society to participate.
Bajramspahić considers that the work of the working groups of the Ministry of Interior and the police is insufficiently transparent, especially of those working on implementing numerous measures from strategic documents, especially related to Chapters 23 and 24.
She said that 70 percent of citizens believe that politics has an impact on decision-making process in the police.
“The provision on prohibiting political activities of police officers is not being complied enough, as can be seen by their participation in political rallies,” said Bajramspahić.
She stated that overabundance of the police is a big problem. “Our police is multiple supernumerary, especially in comparison to EU standards”.
According to Bajramspahic, the system of promotion in the police is dysfunctional.
“The data show that almost all the officers are already in the biggest salary grade which makes the opportunity for promotion absolutely pointless”, she said.
Bajramspahić added that the State Audit Institution (SAI) has noted the many problems concerning the way of financial management in the police.
Public policy researcher, Marko Sošić, said that the key issue that could affect the integrity of the police is very low program budgeting.
He stated that there are no defined non-financial elements of the program budget. “There was no determined objective or the purpose or indicators of individual programs on the basis of which could be measured whether the objectives for which the money was allocated for the Police were fulfilled”.
Mladen Bojanic, independent MP, said that the fact that 534 employees, or ten percent of the total number of police offices not being reassigned is unbelievable.
Biljana Dulović from the Ministry of Interior explained that those are not disengaged officers.
“All officers are working and are on the payroll and receive salaries based on the decision on reassignment. They are currently non-reassigned according to the current Rulebook, but they have decision on reassignment under the previous Rulebook, and conduct their business for receiving salary”, explained Dulović.
Commenting on the assessment, she added that, if the officer is already in the highest pay grade, there is no legal basis for increasing his salary.
Dulović has pointed out that the Ministry of Interior is investing great efforts in order to strengthen the integrity of police officers and have formed a working group for that purpose.
Independent MP, Zoran Miljanic assessed the report is high quality. He said that the police officers who were earlier suspected of abuse of authority, should have been punished.
“If they were adequately punished and were subjected to the laws, beating up of (Milorad) Martinovic would have not happened,” he said.
The President of the Council for Civil Control of the Police, Aleksandar Saša Zeković, considers that the recommendations given in the report are in place and that they are given at the right time. He believes that the integrity of the police is compromised.
“We must not generalize but to speak clearly and with arguments about specific examples that compromise the integrity of the police,” said Zeković.
(Author: MINA Agency)
Media report by TV Vijesti about our report on the assessment of the police integrity in Montenegro can be found clicking on the link below:
This presentation is organised within the framework 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).
Institution building in four steps
Agency for Prevention of Corruption should be operational by 1 January 2016. There is a vast array of preconditions for the commencement of functioning of this “emerging” institution and we chose four of them to test in practice.
Legality. The emergence of the key institution for prevention of violations of the legal order was marked by its flagrant infringement. A member of the Council of the Agency for Prevention of Corruption became a state auditor even though the Law on State Audit Institution explicitly forbids the Council members from becoming members of the management body of a legal entity. Since particular interests are above the law, the auditor with personal ties to the leadership of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) is a better fit than independent candidates. The work of the Council of the Agency formed in this manner is regularly being additionally obstructed. For example, this body deliberated on the Agency Budget Bill only after the Government formally adopted it. Therefore, it had no way of influencing the final version of this document, even though the law and the Statute of the Agency alike stipulate that the Senate is the body which formulates the Draft Budget of the Agency. Additionally, the budget provides significant funds for equipping the offices of the Agency, which further implies the necessity of conducting procedures of public procurement. However, with the deadline for constituting this body quickly approaching, assessments on the necessity of conducting purchase without tender are often being made, which will in turn lead to the violation of the Law on Public Procurement. Unless somebody reminds us again that “conditions for implementation of one law cannot be created through violations of another”. Nonetheless, this is exactly what is occurring, since the Bill on Salaries of Civil Servants and State Employees does not stipulate the same coefficient for the director of the Agency and the Ombudsman, although the Law on Combating Corruption requires it. To summarize, two violations of the law committed and two violations in sight.
Merit-based principle. The Director is the central figure of the Agency. By the letter of the law, he represents the Agency, makes decisions, gives opinions, and proposes the budget and other acts of the Agency on its behalf. For these great competencies, a minimum of five years of work experience in the field of fight against corruption is required. However, the newly appointed director cannot recall any officials being convicted of corruption while he was the head of the police. Moreover, during submitting comments to the Rules of Procedure of the Council of the Agency, the director is uncertain as to how could a member of this body possibly be in conflict of interest. This question is raised by the same man with personal ties to the leadership of the DPS from the beginning of this text.
Efficiency of the Agency largely depends on the resources allocated for its work. For this purpose, the Government allocated funds which amount to exactly 0.2% of the total proposed budget for the following year. Thus, the least possible amount is assigned, not a cent more or a cent less than what was envisaged by the Law on Combating Corruption. This amount is calibrated through capital expenditure. Considering that the Act on Systematization and Internal Organization of the Agency is not yet adopted, it is unclear as to how the number of 50 employees who will be on the Agency payroll in 2016 was derived. Besides it being nice and round. In this manner, expenditures for employment contracts for “scarce expert knowledge”, training and consultancy services were planned, without prior analysis of the profiles of civil servants this institution requires. One-half of the total number of employees has yet to be hired. Not one open call was published so far.
Transparency. The director of the Agency did not allow for his job interview to be open to the public. The candidate for a holder of public authority who should convince the public in his capacities and vision for occupying such responsible position did not want for the public to hear what he has to say. Following his election, he additionally tried to make sessions of the Council of the Agency closed for the public. He offered a “convincing” explanation: “I am against the kind of transparency which is requested at this moment. Transparency is not prevalent if the Council member discloses to the public … what I, as the director, discuss with members of the Council about measures, projects, plans … Informing the public through the website and issuing press releases yes … but ensuring transparency through direct presence no. You need to understand that in this kind of agencies which deal with combating corruption and organized crime … for us to record our session and for certain members to reveal it somewhere, that is impossible. We cannot work like that, we cannot achieve results like that.”
“The story goes on and on without end.”
In short, four steps in establishing the Agency look like this: Violation of the law. Conflict of interest. Arbitrary determination of expenditures. Lack of transparency. When we cut the red ribbon at the New Year’s ceremony and celebrate establishing of the new institution, will you be able to place your trust in this kind of Agency?
Jovana MAROVIĆ
Research Coordinator at Institute Alternative and member of the Working Group for Chapter 23
Text originally published at the section ,,Forum” of Daily Vijesti