April 2016 – Institute Alternative

21. 04. 2016.23. 12. 2017.

Interview: Excessive Use of Force Is Still Tolerated In the Montenegrin Police

Corruption remains a serious concern despite positive legislative changes in Montenegro. The situation is highly problematic in an environment where police officers are accused of corruption or there is a lack of coordination between police and prosecutors. This is one of the reasons why the European Parliament criticized the government’s lacklustre approach to tackling corruption and urging it to make the Special Prosecutor’s Office fully operational as soon as possible. This is the reasons why the POINTPULSE Network is talking today with the Institute Alternative researcher Dina Bajramspahić about police reform in Montenegro.

What are the consequences of police corruption in Montenegro?

Even though the claim that corruption is omnipresent in Montenegro is widely accepted, the greatest consequences of corruption for the society can be seen in the police and the judiciary.

On the one hand, it goes contrary to the citizen’s belief that they live in a society where their basic rights are respected.

On the other hand, the existence of corruption in the police is contributing to the increase of corruption in other areas within the context of the lack of ruthless repressive fight against it.

What are the main three problems in police reform process in your country?

‘’A corruptive behaviour’’ present in Montenegrin police is not only reflected in bribery and misuse of official power but also in the passivity of action, extortion of statements and political involvement.

Violent disruption of protests from a few months ago, for which there are only two officers that are being charged against, has shown that excessive use of force is still tolerated in the police.

The question of police torture is very complex, and although it might be it is not only a political issue. It also testifies that a certain number of officers of Montenegrin police have not adopted the principle of non-violence and human act.

Civil society in Montenegro must strive towards having police officers that will be empowered to refuse a non-ethical order or to stop a colleague that is acting illegally, which was not the case here.

Is there an example of good practices in tackling police corruption?

A positive thing in Montenegro is that there are a vast number of institutions and bodies that deal with police work, including internal control, ethical board, disciplinary commission, two parliamentary committees, council for civil control, ombudsman, anti-corruption agency, etc. However, these bodies have still not achieved the level of efficiency necessary for the conduct of its competencies.

What are the main three recommendations to foster police reform process in your country?

It is necessary to improve the coordination and exchange of information among exterior and particularly interior mechanisms for determining responsibility in order to achieve greater efficiency, among other things, by organizing regular meetings, focusing on identifying systemic problems in police officers’ work and proposing systemic measures for tackling those issues.

It is also crucial to keep strengthening the internal control of the police, and by amending Law on Internal Affairs, expanding the authority of the internal control on supervision over Ministry of Interior particularly in high-risk areas for corruption, such as public finance and public procurement.

Finally, it is particularly important to reform the human resource management in police, with emphasis on just evaluation and promotion based on work results.

Credits: POINTPULSE

21. 04. 2016.22. 02. 2018.

IA presented recommendations for better reporting on public procurement

Representatives of Institute Alternative (IA) held a meeting today with Assistant Director of Public Procurement Administration (PPA) Mara Bogavac. The meeting was held at the initiative of PPA, regarding our findings from numerous publications, especially out last year’s report Public Procurement in Montenegro: Corruption Within the Law. The aim of the meeting is to improve Annual report on public procurement in 2015, which PPA should publish until 31 May this year.

IA representatives pointed to mistakes in reporting in annual report, but also in individual reports of contracting authorities, identified through several years of monitoring this area, and presented set of recommendations for improvement. Once again they reminded of a need for submitting individual reports on public procurement in machine readable form, which would enable automatic processing and grouping of data. Also, IA proposes changes of content of forms for annual reporting on conducted public procurement of contracted authorities, which, among amounts and lists of conducted procurement, would also include the following:

Information on concluded annexes and explanation for changing conditions of the original contract;
Amount of planed and spent budget for public procurement;
Number of adopted amendments on public procurement plan;
Reasons for amending the public procurement plan;
Information on extending the deadline for submitting offers for each procurement;
Reasons for extending the deadline for submitting offers for each procurement;
Information on changing tender documentation.

Regarding existing content, the Annual Report on Public Procurement should also contain following information:

Number of annexes concluded annually, for which the PPA gave its consent, contracting authorities and amounts of concluded amendments of the original contract; clarify the number of negotiated procedures without prior publication of a public tender which refers to amendments to the original contract (Article 25 of the Public Procurement Law);
Total number and list of all contracting authorities that failed to submit annual report on public procurement within legally prescribed deadline – until the end of February;
Total number and list of all contracting authorities that violated allowed percentage of use of direct agreement;
List of all contracting authorities which did not correctly presented data on conducted procurement;

Accordingly, prescribe misdemeanor liability for contracting authorities which submit incorrect data. To contracting authorities which do not properly present data, PPA shall send them a notice, explanation and instruction how to eliminate deficiencies in next reports on public procurement.

List of all contracting authorities that are not submitting reports on public procurement continuously;
Total number of contracting authorities with discrepancies in the amounts of planned and spent budget;
Total number of contracting authorities which amended public procurement plans and contracting authorities with the most amendments;
Data on misdemeanor liability for violations of the Law noted in PPA’s reports;
Total number of tenders when only one bid is submitted, list of contracting authorities and subject of the contract;
Total number of tenders with more than one bid submitted, but all than one were excluded as irregular;

It is necessary to adopt a unique way of naming documents which refer to public procurement procedures.

Before presenting each group of data from the individual reports of contracting authorities, PPA should provide a brief explanation for contracting authorities and interested parties, for example:

Spent budget is a sum of all concluded public procurement during one year, i.e. sum of amounts presented in forms A, B and C;
Percentage of use of direct agreement should be calculated based on total spent budget for public procurement in (…) year.

Descriptive part of the report should also contain:

Information on capacities of contracting authorities for conducting public procurement procedures (detailed review of number of contracting authorities which have a special office for PP, number of public procurement officers and similar information);
Number of public procurement officers who have not yet passed professional exam;
Besides specific information on public procurement in health sector, which is the obligation from the Action Plan for Chapter 23, but any such report have not been published yet, the report should contain specific information on public procurement conducted in education sector and public works, as particularly sensitive areas;
Information on the progress in setting up electronic public procurement system;
Information on what have been done in accordance with the last year Government’s conclusions;
Problems in Public Procurement Portal functioning;
Key challenges for the implementation of public procurement grouped in one chapter.

Additionally, in order to make the report more readable, it is necessary to exclude tables of activities from strategic documents, and to only publish main trends, problems and recommendations, as well as a link to the strategic document or action plan.

18. 04. 2016.14. 12. 2017.

Corruption at the top of the class

Nearly four years after the start of EU accession negotiations, and more than two since the opening of chapters 23 and 24 relating to the rule of law, Montenegro is waiting for the European Commission to (pr)evaluate the success of fulfilling tasks put before it. These requirements, which EC uses to “measure” the level of readiness to join, are formulated broadly. Hence, the progress in fulfilling them, present in everyday rhetoric of representatives of state institutions, mainly proceeds from over-stressed importance of implemented administrative and technical tasks. Improvement in these areas is not tangible. While anticipating the score at the supranational level, here’s how fight against corruption, done thus far, looks in our notebook.

Commission says: ‘’Strengthen and review the institutional framework for fight against corruption’’. The response to this EC’s requirement was merging couple of institutions into one, while making controversial choice of its decision-making authorities, as well as breaking the law on every possible step of the way. Agency for Prevention of Corruption hasn’t been independent and impartial, and it has been even less functional and trustworthy, since it begun its work at the beginning of the year. Even though it has strengthened its capacities, it is still not transparent enough. Its decision makers are even less trustworthy.

“Control system for public procurement is to be strengthened as well as the supervision of implementation of awarded contracts”. During last year inspectors have controlled implementation of the 25 contracts. Over 5000 public procurement contracts and more that 70 000 direct agreements which are not public are being concluded on yearly basis in Montenegro. There are no criminal charges or verdicts in public procurement. In short, every 200thcontract is controlled while direct agreements remain uncontrolled. Inspection chooses which contract should be controlled. Suggestions and pressure do not help.

‘Develop specific measures to fight corruption in particularly vulnerable areas”., Public hearing on the Operating document for fight against corruption is on going. Document is treating corruption in 7 sectoral policies, including local self-governments. Without in depth inspecting of the quality of the document, since it still has time to be improved during public hearing, the plan doesn’t include key problems and risks identified through evaluation of the previous strategic framework for fight against corruption (which must be foundation for the defining of the new measures).How much transparency has progressed thus far shows the following data: in 2012 there were at least 10 508 local employees(increased for almost 1/5 two years later) and now that data is secret. The information on the local finances, including number of local employees, has been declared internal by the Ministry of Finance. Rationalization remains invisible.

‘Strengthen the Parliament’s role in fighting corruption by stepping up supervision of the executive.”During last year only one control hearing was held in one parliamentary committee based on the initiative of the 1/3 of members. Anticorruption committee did not hold any sessions in the second half of the year. Political crisis that lasts for months is poor excuse for unfinished work, which is the reason for somebody’s mandate. Nevertheless, law level of implemented conclusions, lack of oppositional initiative, without possibility of Anticorruption committee to position itself, weakens control of the Parliament in relation to fight against corruption.

‘’Ensure independent, functional, specialized investigation/prosecution authorities.’ ’Special Prosecution has managed to distinguish itself by its results in short period of time since it has been established in the last July. In a way that even police seeks prime ministers’ support embrace. Proactive approach doesn’t change the fact that citizens, NGOs and legal entities are being reported corruption (more than 80% of criminal chargers). Great cases, plea agreements, cooperative witnesses did not change the balance: there are no final decisions on high-level corruption in 2016 as it was the case in 2012.

‘Improve the collection of unified statistics on corruption”. The system for monitoring corruption cases, from criminal charges to accusation, has not been established yet.

Judging by many bad evaluations, the talk on success from the beginning of the story is a relative thing. Numbers do not lie. But they are subject to different interpretations in a country where corruption is most successful at adjusting to the European integration stages.

Jovana MAROVIĆ
Institute alternative’s Associate

06. 04. 2016.12. 01. 2018.

Workshop: How to achieve good governance?

Guidelines for monitoring of future Strategy for Public Administration Reform are result of two day workshop, organized by Institute alternative in Podgorica, on 4th and 5th April, within the project ‘’Civil Society for Good Governance: to Act and Account!’’, with the support of the European Union (EU).

Next to Institute alternative, active participants of the workshop were partner organizations, Centre for investigative journalism form Podgorica, Bonum from Pljevlja, NGO New Horizons from Ulcinj and Natura from Kolašin, as well as representatives from Ministry of Interior, providing support to working groups and defining indicators and potential methods for collecting data, necessary for civil society’s monitoring of public administration reform.

Key expected results were mapped during the workshop, based on Draft Public Administration Reform Strategy, which would have greatest impact on the better life of citizens, in 4 year period. In addition, certain number of indicators was defined, which would estimate achieving of results.

While choosing indicators for reform development, which should lead to creating efficient and service-oriented public administration, characterized by greater trust of citizens in its work, we considered added value which independent CSOs monitoring should achieve.

That is one of the basic goals of the project, especially considering very small number of Montenegrin NGOs, which deal with this important area.

On the other side, from the progress of public administration reform largely depends overall pace of Montenegrin EU accession.

We remind that this reform takes very important place in the newest EU’s Enlargement Strategy.

Next to rule of law and economic governance, it represents one of the foundations on which competence of the Western Balkan will be judged in EU accession process.