We call upon the Agency for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information to promptly decide upon the Institute alternative’s appeal against the Decision of the Secretariat-General of the Government from March this year, which declared confidential all information on work of the Commission for allocation of funds from budgetary reserve.
According to the Rules of Procedure of the Government, the Commission for the allocation of funds from current budgetary reserve, as a permanent Government’s body, decides independently on the allocation of funds to individuals, organizations, companies and associations, on the basis of submitted requests and relevant documentation. The purposes for which this money can be used are support for medical treatment, education, improvement of financial situation, but also “other purposes in accordance with the Law”.
Total funds spent from the “current budgetary reserve” for the past four years amount to 62 million euro. Since all the data of the Commission’s work have been declared “confidential”, we cannot even assume how much of this amount was spent through their decisions, nor to what purposes the money was spent and to whom it has gone.
Through free access to information, we requested some basic information on this Government body’s work: requests submitted to the Commission during 2015, decisions on allocation of funds, reports, statements and conclusion proposals, as well as minutes from the Commission’s session.
Our request was rejected because the Secretariat-General of the Government declared confidential – i.e. “classified” all the information on Commission’s work, referring to the Law on Personal Data Protection.
We consider the reasoning of hiding this information because of personal data protection unconvincing, as well as an abuse of the provisions of the Law on Personal Data Protection and the Law on Free Access to Information. In our opinion, the Secretariat-General has ignored the obligation of providing a copy of requested information after deleting confidential (protected) parts – in this case, personal data should have been deleted.
We are concerned about this practice of hiding information about this significant budget spending, which is discretionary and refers to transfers to individuals and legal entities, regulated only by the general rulebook from 2009. As long as the information on work of the Commission that is not accountable to anyone but the Government, are not publicly available, we have a right to doubt that funds from the “current budgetary reserve” have been misused for electoral purposes.
Zoran Jelić, the ruling party official, has been breaking the law for years because he worked as the advisor at the Employment Bureau of Montenegro although he was an MP of the DPS at the same time. His wife Vukica ran the Bureau. According to the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees, a civil servant commits a serious breach of work obligations if politically active. Not only was Zoran Jelić politically active, but he was also one of the loudest MPs of the ruling party.
Earlier, Rade Milošević, the former director of the Employment Bureau appointed by the opposition via Lex Specialis, disclosed the information that Jelić has not come to work from mid-2012 to 27th May 2016, despite the fact he received a salary at the Bureau. Milošević has not dealt with the breach of the law because of the political engagement of the advisor Zoran Jelić. Still, in July this year he filed criminal complaint against Jelić couple due to the alleged abuse of office and unconscientious performance of duties. Milošević stated that Zoran Jelić costed the Bureau and the state budget the total amount of 4.253 euro (gross) from January until May. He did not show up for work during that time, which is something every other employee does.
Even though there is no record of Jelić’s engagement at the Bureau, he also received a variable pay, which is, as prescribed by the Law, allocated for remarkable contributions or augmented workload. According to the data CIN-CG obtained, Jelić received the variable of €250 in December 2014 from the Bureau. And in December 2015 he received a variable pay of €150. These amounts were not disclosed in his asset card, even though the Law on Conflict of Interest obliged him to do so.
Interestingly enough, Jelić was rewarded for remarkable contribution at the Parliament of Montenegro as well. For the entirety of 12 months of last year, he also received the variable pay besides his base salary. These incomes are disclosed in his asset card.
As a reminder, Jelić was the director of the Bureau until March 2012 when he was suspended of this duty at his personal request. His wife Vukica inherited the seat. She appointed her husband advisor a year after she was named the director, and a month upon the internal reorganization of this institution.
The Order of Demotion of 25th July 2013, signed by Jelić’s wife, does not show the position from which Zoran Jelić was demoted to the post of “independent advisor for coordination and monitoring of the work process at the Human Resources Sector“. Jelić refused to reply to CIN-CG’s question on which he occupied from the moment when he left the head position until he became advisor.
During his time as a director in the Bureau, Jelić became known for his famous formula of electoral success of the ruling party, which he openly promoted at one of the DPS sessions. “One employee – four votes. If we managed to employ one of our own we took one of their votes, and increased the number of ours and that is where the family steps in. Let’s help that person get employed and we will have the effect of four votes for DPS“, Jelić said.
The competent institutions, Administrative Inspection at the Ministry of Interior (MoI) and the Agency for Prevention of Corruption, have not taken necessary measures against Jelić on the grounds of the breach of law. There was no reaction when it comes to his wife either, who should have asked for exclusion according to the conflict of interest principle, when she signed the Order of Demotion of her husband Zoran as a civil servant in 2013.
Sreten Radonjić, the director of the Agency for Prevention of Corruption, responded to CIN-CG that the Law on Prevention of Corruption “does not allow him to make arbitrary comments“ on the case. Therefore, he could not answer whether the Jelić couple was in the conflict of interests.
“In order to confirm the breach of the Law with certainty, the Agency has to have all the facts, evidence and documentation“, Radonjić stated. He also suggested to CIN-CG journalists that they provide the Agency with evidence if they are in possession of it, so the Agency could check and act upon it. The Agency indirectly stated that it is not interested in the fact that Zoran Jelić worked both as MP and as civil servant, even though the Law forbids it. “The Law on Civil Servants and State Employees prescribes the rights, obligations and responsibilities of state institution employees. Their immediate implementation is up to the employer“, Radonjić responded.
Therefore, according to this interpretation, it was up to Jelić’s wife as his employer to determine whether the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees was breached when she named a politically exposed person as her advisor.
Vanja Ćalović, member of the Council of the Agency for Prevention of Corruption and executive director of Network for the Affirmation of NGO Sector (MANS), stated that the case of Jelić couple is a brutal example of privatization of a state institution. Ćalović stated that Vukica Jelić should have come upfront to the Commission for Conflict of Interest earlier and ask for an opinion on demotion of her husband as civil servant. She said that the Law on the Conflict of Interest stipulated that in any case, where private interest is interfering with the public interest, the Agency should be consulted, or the person in question should be excluded from the procedure at his or her own initiative.
“At one point, Mr. Jelić was the director and Ms. Jelić was the civil servant. Then Ms. Jelić became the director and Mr. Jelić civil servant, where Mr. Jelić as former director served as advisor to Ms. Jelić, the new director. The sheer complexity of explaining the very issue shows that it is an evident case of conflict of interest“, she emphasised.
Ćalović pointed out for CIN-CG that the entire case was additionally alarming if we bear in mind that Jelić is an MP in the Parliament, which has the role to control the executive authority, in this case the Bureau.
“Jelić was also the president of the Committee on Health, Labour and Social Care which is suppose to supervise the institution that his wife is the director of, while he is the civil servant“, she pointed out.
Vukica Jelić was not willing to make a statement over phone regarding the law violations at the Bureau, while Zoran Jelić has not yet responded the CIN-CG questions.
IA demands ban on the two-track engagement
NGO Institute Alternative (IA) urged the authorities, the Agency for Prevention of Corruption in the first place as well as the Administrative Inspection, to prevent the breach of law and these “two-track engagements”. They commented another case of MP of the ruling DPS, Radovan Obradović, who received his severance pay last year, in the amount of € 15 000, upon leaving the post of advisor in the municipality of Bijelo Polje. Besides that, his employment in the Municipality was suspended based on the Law on Labour, which in no case was applicable.
IA emphasised that the employment suspension could not have had any implication to Obradović since he was the advisor in the Municipality, and specific laws regulate the rights of state and local servants. These are the Law on Civil Servants and Employees and the Law on Local Self-governments, which do not recognise the employment suspension of civil servants due to their appointment to a “state function“.
“The rationale applied to employees in the private or civil sector cannot be applied to employees in the state administration and local administrations. The nature of the job and authority of public servants puts them in a particularly sensitive position, both from the politicisation and conflict of interests viewpoints“, IA stated.
Infographic explaining the case of Zoran Jelić, MP and civil servant
They were not controlled by the Inspection
The Administrative inspection stated to CIN-CG that they have not carried out oversight activities in Jelić case. Therefore, they could only give a general comment. However, they confirmed that the Article 9 of the Law on Civil Servants and Employees stipulates that the civil servant is obliged to abstain from public display of their political beliefs. They added that the Article 83 of the same Law is precise in stipulating that the expression of political beliefs at workplace is a severe violation of official duty.
When asked whether Vukica Jelić could have asked for exclusion when she appointed her husband to be advisor at the Bureau, they replied that the conflict of interest issues are determined by the Agency for Prevention of Corruption. “We remind the public, Article 134 paragraph 1 of the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees stipulates that it is the head of the authority who decides on the rights and obligations of civil servants and state employees“, they replied.
CIN-CG asked the Administrative Inspection whether there are legal grounds for receiving variable pay both in the Parliament and the Bureau, if, according to the law, the variable part of the salary is paid out for excellent results in work or augmented workload. They said that the answer to that question should be obtained from the budgetary inspection of the Ministry of Finance, which controls the implementation of the Law on Income in the public sector.
This article has been produced with the assistance of the European Union within the project “Civil Society for Good Governance: To Act and Account”, implemented by Institute Alternative, Bonum, Natura, Novi horizont and Centre for Investigative Journalism. The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of the authors and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.
Call for applications for participants of the Fifth Generation of
PUBLIC POLICY SCHOOL
The School aims at providing participants with theoretical and practical knowledge about public policies, their creation and improvement. During the three-month long programme, participants will have the opportunity to learn about the key aspects of creation, analysis, implementation and monitoring of public policies. We will also speak about the anti-corruption policies, budgeting, the process of policy-making in the Montenegrin public administration, the role of think tanks in public policy, as well as the role of state and non-state actors in policy-making at the EU level.
The School is implemented through five modules consisting of a series of lectures and practical work. Lecturers are experts in public policy from the county and the region – professors from universities in Zagreb, Belgrade and Podgorica, representatives of state institutions and independent research centers. The programme is intended for employees of the state administration, local self-governments, the Parliamentary Service, NGOs, unions, the media, political parties, as well as to postgraduate students of social sciences.
To successfully apply for our programme “Public Policy School – V Generation”, please send:
Lectures will be held in Podgorica and Budva. For the selected participants, the programme is free of charge. The participants are bound by contract to attend no less than 80% of the programme. Upon successful completion, awarding of diplomas will be organized.
The project “Public Policy School – V Generation” is implemented with the financial support of the Commission for Allocation of Revenue from Games of Chance and Think Tank Fund – Open Society Foundation.
Call for Expression of Interest to civil society organisations to participate in the establishment and functioning of a regional mechanism for monitoring the public administration reform in the Western Balkans
Think for Europe Network (TEN) invites all interested civil society organizations (CSOs) to engage in the establishment and subsequent work of the regional consultative platform for monitoring public administration reform in the Western Balkans (WeBER Platform). CSO participation will be determined through a selective process which is outlined below. The WeBER Platform will be established with the support of the Western Balkans Enabling Project for Civil Society Monitoring of Public Administration Reform – WeBER, funded by the European Union and co-financed by the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The main objectives of the WeBER Platform are: 1) to create enabling conditions for the participation of CSOs in monitoring public administration reform (PAR); and 2) the establishment and perpetuation of evidence-based dialogue between civil society, Western Balkan government representatives, and international and regional organisations and institutions, such as the European Commission, the SIGMA programme of the OECD (Support for Improvement in Governance and Management[1]), the Regional School for Public Administration (ReSPA) and the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC).
Members of the WeBER Platform will have the opportunity to improve their participation in the PAR process through collaboration and to strengthen their advocacy efforts through interfacing with national authorities and international organisations dealing with the PAR. The PAR Monitor Methodology developed through the WeBER project will be available to member organisations of the Platform, which will facilitate the future preparation of both national and regional PAR monitoring reports. Ultimately, application of the PAR Monitor methodology will not only monitor the progress in PAR in each Western Balkan country, but will allow for regional benchmarking and comparison of countries through a regional PAR Scoreboard.
Participating CSOs will be chosen from each involved country through a selection process which will determine up to five CSOs from each country that are deemed to have the most relevant experience in public administration reform. These selected CSOs will be involved in the work of the WeBER Platform. Given that the selection process for overall membership will be carried out in parallel in Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Macedonia it is expected that the WeBER Platform will comprise up to 25 CSOs from the Western Balkan region. The WeBER Platform will be formally established on the margins of the Annual ReSPA Conference on November 16, 2016, in Danilovgrad and Podgorica, Montenegro.
If you wish to become a member and contribute to the activities of the WeBER Platform, please send an Expression of Interest (EoI) in the form of a letter. The EoI should include a statement detailing the organization’s motivation to become a member of the Platform, cite organisational references in PAR and should be accompanied by the CVs of two members of staff working on PAR who would be directly involved in the work of the Platform. All the necessary documents should be submitted in English to ten@europeanpolicy.org by October 5, 2016. Should you need any further information, please do not hesitate to contact:
Serbia – Jovana Knezevic (CEP Belgrade) at jovana.knezevic@cep.org.rs or at +381 11 408 22 65
Albania – Gjergji Vurmo (IDM Albania) at gevurmo@idmalbania.org or at +355 4 240 0241
Bosnia and Herzegovina – Belma Cemalovic (FPI BH) at belma@vpi.ba or at +387 33 568 860
Kosovo – Njomza Arifi (GLPS) at njomza.arifi@legalpoliticalstudies.org or at +381 38 227 944
Montenegro – Ana Djurnic (IA) at ana@institut-alternativa.org or at +382 20 268 686
Macedonia – Vaska Ristovska (EPI-Skopje) at vaska.ristovska@epi.org.mk or at +389 23 280 110
* The Western Balkans Enabling Project for Civil Society Monitoring of Public Administration Reform (WeBER), funded by the European Union and co-funded by the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is dedicated to increasing the relevance, participation and capacity of civil society organisations and media in the Western Balkans to advocate for and influence the design and implementation of public administration reform. WeBER is implemented by six policy oriented think tanks from Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia gathered within the Think for Europe Network (TEN), with the support and mentorship of the European Policy Centre (EPC) from Brussels. By partnering up with the EPC WeBER will ensure EU level visibility.
[1] a joint initiative of the OECD and the European Union
Call for Expression of Interest to civil society organisations to participate in the establishment and functioning of a regional mechanism for monitoring the public administration reform in the Western Balkans
Think for Europe Network (TEN) invites all interested civil society organizations (CSOs) to engage in the establishment and subsequent work of the regional consultative platform for monitoring public administration reform in the Western Balkans (WeBER Platform). CSO participation will be determined through a selective process which is outlined below. The WeBER Platform will be established with the support of the Western Balkans Enabling Project for Civil Society Monitoring of Public Administration Reform – WeBER, funded by the European Union and co-financed by the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The main objectives of the WeBER Platform are: 1) to create enabling conditions for the participation of CSOs in monitoring public administration reform (PAR); and 2) the establishment and perpetuation of evidence-based dialogue between civil society, Western Balkan government representatives, and international and regional organisations and institutions, such as the European Commission, the SIGMA programme of the OECD (Support for Improvement in Governance and Management[1]), the Regional School for Public Administration (ReSPA) and the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC).
Members of the WeBER Platform will have the opportunity to improve their participation in the PAR process through collaboration and to strengthen their advocacy efforts through interfacing with national authorities and international organisations dealing with the PAR. The PAR Monitor Methodology developed through the WeBER project will be available to member organisations of the Platform, which will facilitate the future preparation of both national and regional PAR monitoring reports. Ultimately, application of the PAR Monitor methodology will not only monitor the progress in PAR in each Western Balkan country, but will allow for regional benchmarking and comparison of countries through a regional PAR Scoreboard.
Participating CSOs will be chosen from each involved country through a selection process which will determine up to five CSOs from each country that are deemed to have the most relevant experience in public administration reform. These selected CSOs will be involved in the work of the WeBER Platform. Given that the selection process for overall membership will be carried out in parallel in Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Macedonia it is expected that the WeBER Platform will comprise up to 25 CSOs from the Western Balkan region. The WeBER Platform will be formally established on the margins of the Annual ReSPA Conference on November 16, 2016, in Danilovgrad and Podgorica, Montenegro.
If you wish to become a member and contribute to the activities of the WeBER Platform, please send an Expression of Interest (EoI) in the form of a letter. The EoI should include a statement detailing the organization’s motivation to become a member of the Platform, cite organisational references in PAR and should be accompanied by the CVs of two members of staff working on PAR who would be directly involved in the work of the Platform. All the necessary documents should be submitted in English to ten@europeanpolicy.org by October 5, 2016. Should you need any further information, please do not hesitate to contact:
* The Western Balkans Enabling Project for Civil Society Monitoring of Public Administration Reform (WeBER), funded by the European Union and co-funded by the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is dedicated to increasing the relevance, participation and capacity of civil society organisations and media in the Western Balkans to advocate for and influence the design and implementation of public administration reform. WeBER is implemented by six policy oriented think tanks from Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia gathered within the Think for Europe Network (TEN), with the support and mentorship of the European Policy Centre (EPC) from Brussels. By partnering up with the EPC WeBER will ensure EU level visibility.
[1] a joint initiative of the OECD and the European Union
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok
As a reminder, Jelić was the director of the Bureau until March 2012 when he was suspended of this duty at his personal request. His wife Vukica inherited the seat. She appointed her husband advisor a year after she was named the director, and a month upon the internal reorganization of this institution.
knowledge about public policies, their creation and improvement. During the three-month long programme, participants will have the opportunity to learn about the key aspects of creation, analysis, implementation and monitoring of public policies. We will also speak about the anti-corruption policies, budgeting, the process of policy-making in the Montenegrin public administration, the role of think tanks in public policy, as well as the role of state and non-state actors in policy-making at the EU level.
